Question: If I am corrected, I see a better world around me. But if I see suffering around, how should I treat it?

Answer: Our life is a duality. On one hand, our body belongs to the animate world, but on the other hand, the desire that we are developing belongs to a higher level, the human degree.

It is said about the world that we see around us: “Everyone is like an animal.” A human being in our world is not just similar to an animal, he is even worse. By nature, animals instinctively take care of their own existence. They have no urge for binge eating, inventing goodies, sweets, and delicacies for themselves; grains or grass are enough for a donkey. Give him bread instead, and he will not want it. Similarly, animals have no impulse to overindulge in sex; they act on instinct, breeding in the seasons designated by nature. They do not have palaces, burrows are enough for them. This is animal existence.

Unlike them, a human has exorbitant desires so that as a result of development they discover it has brought him to a dead end. This is what we reveal today.

So seeing people’s suffering, we have to mentally divide their existence into two parts. What does a person need on the animal level to live a healthy normal life? He needs a shelter, food, clothing, family and other necessary, but only rational, conditions. Of course, we cannot live as we did a thousand generations ago. I need to wish everyone in the world to have acceptable conditions, but not more. The general law of nature states: On the animal level, you must ensure your existence, and all your other desires, thoughts, and abilities, everything that you have in addition, you must devote to spiritual ascent.

So, if we talk about the future world, about the life until the end of correction, when this world disappears from our feelings, the reasonable set of things, necessary for material existence should be provided and everything else given to spiritual development.

If today, we had organized our life in this way, we would have found that there is everything in this world necessary to provide each of the seven billion people with normal physical conditions. Most of the day, we would be free from material work in order to study and realize our internal spiritual work to change ourselves. This is what we should strive for.

I do not know yet how it can be realized in practice, but hope very much that we will be able to explain to people that this is the correct way of life in the world. Through the crisis and explanations, we will come to the middle line, to a state, in which the world accepts it.
[89263]
From the Convention in Italy 9/30/12, Lesson 2

Related Material:
A Spiritual Person In A Carrier From Earth
Which Desires To Fulfill?
Defining Vital Necessities

Filed under: Conventions, Crisis, Egoism, Evolution, Kabbalah Dissemination, Q&A, Society, World - No Comments →

Question: Today people already understand that things will only be getting worse in the world. But Kabbalah is still far from the masses. How can we cover this distance? And why is it there?

Answer: It is there in order to provide us and mankind with an opportunity to make an effort. This separation allows us and the external society to do mutual work in regard to one another. The distance was created with a purpose, for you to invest your knowledge, comprehension, understanding and to think about what is getting in the way of continuing the natural process.

Once apes descended from the trees and with time became primitive people. This was followed by the era of slavery, the Middle Ages, and the period of capitalism. And today, when this development has concluded in a collapse, people could come to the realization of the need for good unity. So why does development not continue automatically?

Because then the human would never appear. It would be the same primate that came down from the trees, driven by its egoism. We do not realize that we are completely under the control of our self-love. If I were shown the system in which we all exist, I would see that I do not do anything on my own. In this situation, the creature will not emerge. Take anyone through the filter of independence, and nothing will be left of him – nothing but the upper force, which was there initially.

“How do you make a human?”: That is the question. A human can be made only by providing him with darkness, a little knowledge, and a little strength to give him an opportunity to find a way to prevail over his nature and build something opposite to him out of the darkness without much knowledge or understanding. Then he will want to take the necessary parts from the Creator, and submit himself willingly to the environment, which will obligate him to do it. And he will be able to acquire a supernatural form through this mutual work, a form that is above his nature. And this form is called a “Human” (Adam), a form that he has created without the use of the Reshimot (informational genes), which were left in him from the times he was a primate.
[88590]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/19/12, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

Related Material:
No Room For Mistakes
Only The Light Elevates Me
Only Free Will You Realize You Were A Slave

Filed under: Body and Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Evolution, Q&A, Society, Unity - 1 Comment →

Question: What will happen when we connect? How will it work?

Answer: It is a connection that is created above the feeling of separation, since we achieve it by ourselves and this achievement is based on the contrast between two opposite states. Above the resistance between them, we discover our achievement.

It is like a resistor in an electric circuit that resists the connection between two points by creating a resistance between them. However, if we connect this network to two poles, we create a potential difference, and then by this resistance we can clarify what the difference is: By clarifying the gap and the relations between them we can understand what is on one pole and what is on the other. All this is clarified by the resistor, by the resisting force.

The system of life is built on this basis—on the connection of opposite particles. These particles connect into atoms and the atoms into molecules and everything connects on the basis of opposites, a plus with a minus.

Different materials are created thanks to the different connections between the positive and negative particles. Such internal opposite qualities are typical of every material, of all the elements on the periodic table. Later this connection between the plus and the minus becomes increasingly varied and complex. Different qualities appear in it, which turn these creations into living cells.

It isn’t a static system anymore in which the plus and the minus are connected in a stable relationship to one another, but a system in which this relationship begins to change and thus the element of life is created.

The lower can already exist not simply adhering to the upper the way it was in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity), or separated from Him, like after the descent of the worlds to this world, but also in starting to perform independent movements with regard to the upper. This is already a change from the level of the still level of nature into the level of the vegetative and then into the animate level and finally into the level of the speaking. This is how the ascent up the levels occurs.

This is how life is created in this world and this is also what happens in the spiritual world as a person advances and annuls the partition that separates him from the Creator.
[88394]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/13/12, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

Related Material:
A Partition On The Way To Bestowal
The Awakening Of The Point In The Heart
Transformation Of The Pharaoh To The Holy Angel

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Evolution, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “Messiah’s Shofar”: And the dissemination of the wisdom in the masses is called a “Shofar.” Like the Shofar, whose voice travels a great distance, the echo of the wisdom will spread all over the world, so even the nations will hear and acknowledge that there is Godly wisdom in Israel.

The goal of creation is to correct the vessels of receiving. According to the sources, the Creator offered the vessels and the Masachim (screens) to anyone from AHP who wanted the Lights of correction, but no one accepted them.

This means that the Light cannot influence a vessel if the vessel is not compatible with it, if there is no desire for bestowal in the vessel. There cannot be a desire to bestow in the desires to receive since the nature of these vessels is opposite from bestowal to begin with.

So, how can the desire to receive acquire at least some feeling toward bestowal? This is the question.

In order to do that, we use a special part called GE. Its representatives are among the vessels of receiving, although they are different, and so even in our world, they seem very strange. They are called the nation of Israel, which actually does not belong to this world because its roots are in the root phase and in the first and second phases. Initially, it is the attribute of bestowal, although they are in a corrupt form in this world.

These vessels can correct themselves in order to bestow, but on a very low level. Actually, what can they bestow? When they left ancient Babylon, they were in the pure form of GE: a “point in the heart” and nothing more than that.

They went down to Egypt in order to receive a more corrected form later on, which is suitable for their role. They left Babel as one family, and they left Egypt as a nation, the Nation of Israel. Then, they attained their correction, the levels of the Temple, or the “Nation of Israel in the Land of Israel.”

However, all that was just a preparation in order to get closer somehow to AHP. Therefore, after having corrected themselves, the vessels of Israel had to take care of AHP. In order to do that, they were shattered and deteriorated.

It took place as the Greeks and the Romans invaded them and passed on their desires to Israel, thus ruining them. On the whole, the sons of Israel fell downward to AHP, which is called the shattering or the “destruction of the Temple.”

As a result, GE and AHP were completely mixed. This mutual incorporation was supposed to last for 2,000 years, until all the vessels of bestowal and the vessels of receiving were mixed. We all know that the phase of 2,000 years is just a term, while the actual time was 1,500 years.

Later, when the mutual incorporation ended, starting from the times of ARI, the time of correction began, the revival. Therefore, ARI is called “Messiah, son of Joseph.” The main thing in those times was the dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah by the Hassidim and different actions through ascents and descents. Eventually, today, the wisdom of Kabbalah is being revealed, and we are carrying on this process by blowing the “Messiah’s Shofar.”

To whom should the wisdom of Kabbalah be revealed? Is it to parts of GE? However, they all are totally mixed with AHP. So, who will accept this wisdom: separate parts or all of them without an exception, and immediately or in a certain order?

Baal HaSulam answers this. The wisdom of Kabbalah should spread among everyone without exception. The same amount of particles that penetrated a person’s heart during these 2,000 years is also the amount of the Light that is illuminated in him.
[87994]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/9/12, “Messiah’s Shofar”

Related Material:
Spirituality Is Only Between Us
The Spiritual Division Of Labor
To Reveal Or To Conceal?

Filed under: Collective Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Evolution, Israel - No Comments →

Man is a social creature, which means that he depends on everyone and everyone depends on him, but this is revealed gradually.

All of human history is the essence of the social revelation of man. When he climbed down from the tree he lived in the society of the family or the tribe and then gradually expanded his social boundaries. On the one hand, the ego which separates him from others developed in him, and so he had property—a house of his own, his own field, his own camels, horses, sheep, servants… on the other hand, he became more dependent on others—one person became a blacksmith, another a shoemaker, a third became a tailor, another became a farmer, and they were all dependent on one another on the human level of exchanging goods and services. This is despite the fact that a person actually doesn’t want to give anything but only wants to take.

Thus the wheels of the global mechanism started moving since there was no other choice, although no one wanted to coordinate his actions with others. Society developed throughout history along two lines: a growing mutual dependence and a growing egoistic repulsion. People closed themselves by city walls and political borders until this irreversible process reached a dead end, as we have a big ego, and we all depend on one another. This is what is revealed to us today at the end of the two trends that started in the past and have shaped mankind.

Today we have no choice: We are totally dependent on each other and totally hate one another although neither aspect has been fully revealed yet, and we still have to discover this. On the whole, it is revealed by the upper Light that Reforms when we try to connect so that we can rise towards it.

Suppose we want to connect worldwide, what will be the benefit of such an action? By seeing the initial advantages of the connection, we will also see that we are very far from it, absorbed in evil. This is because good and bad are measured in contrast to one another. So time after time, by yearning for the good, for unity, we will rediscover a new evil, which is called the “war of Gog and Magog”—Armageddon…

On the whole, our general collective mechanism is operating now too if we look at it from a different level of clarification. The wheels are spinning and the parts are working. The question is whether you agree with the actions of this mechanism when they are revealed to you. This is how we should examine the situation, from a more mature level.
[88075]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/10/12, “Peace in the World” 

Related Material:
A Bolt That Causes The Destruction Of The World
In Order To Rise And Connect
Treating Integral Blindness

Filed under: Collective Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Evolution, Unity, World - No Comments →

Humankind develops from small to large egoism. Sometime ago, a person naturally discovered that he needs a family; moreover, the bigger the family, the more secure he is. This way, he instinctively started to unite with others, as he came out of a barbarian state.

Families would grow and become tribes, and they expanded so much that people who used to be distant, became close. Villages and cities appeared, family ties gave way to more extended formations, a nation, living in their own country and connected by their belonging to their common destiny, a common mentality.

However, family ties also kept their power, remaining necessary for existence until recently. Only during the last decades, we have destroyed these boundaries, providing people with services, which allow him to no longer feel the need for a family. This led to the crisis in the family institution because marriage no longer promises the same benefits. At the same time, the feeling of belonging to a nation is very important for a person.

However, we continue to develop, and today, like it or not, a new feeling is growing inside us, which now encompasses the entire globe. This is because modern technologies and communications have made the world small and accessible. Today, it is charged with great interdependence, distances become smaller, systems become unified, and we are approaching the state of a single whole.

This way, if before the notion of a “family,” though weakened, still extended all the way to the borders of the country and was as wide as the nation itself, now it encompasses all of mankind. Migration is increasing, nations are mixing, borders are being erased; today, everything is moving in this direction.

What can we say about the people of Israel in this connection? Its foundation was laid by a group of Kabbalists, created by Abraham. These people were not connected in any way, except for a single thing: At a certain stage of their inner development, they felt that unity was the way to attain the Creator.

The other residents of Ancient Babylon also strived towards the Creator, but in another way, they were building the Tower of Babel egoistically, wishing to become like Him. These ambitions kept growing over the course of all of history: “We will control our own lives, we will play with trade and production, we will conquer the cosmos, we, we, we…”

However, even back then, certain Babylonians already wanted to attain the essence of life, and not just to keep pleasing themselves in every possible way. After all, the purpose of life is the attaining of its essence. And this is why, when the crisis arose and the Tower of Babel was destroyed, these people heard Abraham and understood that there is a method that allows penetrating the essence and revealing the upper force.

And today we are in a similar situation. Individuals, among the modern “Babylonians” of the world, gather into the group of Bnei Baruch in order to reveal the Creator. They are called the “people of Israel.”

In addition, there are the “corporeal” people of Israel, the descendants of those who once came out of Babylon with Abraham in the first global crisis. The Reshimot, the “footprints” of the path they have traveled, remained in them, and we must take care of them. This is because every one of them has “marks” from the previous ascent and the breaking that followed.

This is the reason people hate them: On one hand, by breaking, they have passed sparks of bestowal to the entire world, and on the other hand, everyone feels that they are unique and that a certain darkness comes from them—unique as a consequence of the sparks, and darkness as a consequence of the current situation.

We will still reveal a lot along the way, but one way or another, today the time has come to turn to the nation, the descendants of the students of Abraham, the descendants of the Ancient Babylon. As Baal HaSulam writes in his newspaper The Nation, they themselves must awaken a national connection in their environment. And this connection can only be based on a single thing: the principle of loving one’s neighbor as themselves. The Jewish people were initially founded this way, and could they structure themselves any other way today? All the attempts only demonstrate that without their foundation, this nation is like a sack of nuts, ready to fall apart and spread around the world at the first opportunity.

And this is why Baal haSulam writes: “This is why I stated that we need to arrange for ourselves a special education through widespread circulation, instill in each of us a sense of national love, both from one person to another, and from the individuals to the whole, and rediscover the national love that was instilled within us since the time we were on our land, a nation among the nations.”

If the nation fails to acquire their foundation, it will not manage to stay within the borders of the country and lay its roots there. This is why the entire world does not agree with the return of the Jews to their land; it does not yet feel like they have the consciousness of a nation, which must live in the land of Israel. Jews are able to live anywhere, and many do not yet feel like they pertain to and are interconnected with their nation. This vice is felt in them and the entire world, which reacts accordingly.
[85427]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
A Nation That Does Not Exist
When The Whole World Demands
Friends, Don’t Hold The Line!

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Education, Evolution, Group Work, Inner Work, Kabbalah Dissemination - 1 Comment →

Question: Why is the first phase after the root phase the still nature? Why didn’t it all start from another phase?

Answer: Because this the lowest phase that includes everything in it. There are no internal differences in it and so it cannot differentiate anything on the outside. We are speaking about the upper Light only with regard to the created being’s vessels. Therefore, still nature is the first phase in which the created being’s desire receives only the force of restriction that doesn’t allow it to discover more that it discovers now.

The force of restriction operates on the vessels and on the Lights that can be revealed in them. It operates on everything. The question is: What does this force influence? Does it influence the center of the created being or his limits? In other words, on what do I operate by the restriction—on my desire to receive or on the Light?

Of course, I influence my desire. I can never operate the Light.

I restrict the desire to receive and keep it. Thanks to that it doesn’t “jump” on anything. Thus I limit myself in order to receive the Light only in this manner. It is because I know that I don’t have the power for more than that, and so I constantly “keep the limits,” keep my ego in a neutral state.

This is the still phase: The ego is constantly developing, and I constantly keep it on the same level of the still. Actually, it is a great and positive work that takes place in different forms. But by its nature, it belongs to the still level: By myself I put my desire into the regime of the still, where my desire stays the same.

Within this desire I work in relation to the Creator. What can I do? I annul myself inside Him. Thus, I can be in the Creator and adhere to Him, I can be incorporated in Him, which is the attribute of the still level. I don’t allow myself anything except for self-annulment. Imagine that you are inside a great force and you have no other choice and this is the only way you can hold on.

On the other hand, it prepares me for the next level of the vegetative. This is because there are constant changes taking place inside me, which grow according to the five phases of the still level. We may think, so what if instead of a tiny pebble I become a large precious gem? But this isn’t everything yet: The changes I have been through have taught me what it means to grow. The ascent in the phases of the still level has given birth to a mind inside me, since I had the chance to compare things and to get used to the actual fact of instability.

I have restricted the growing pleasure time after time, but at the same time I followed the changes, until I understood that I can really change, and then I moved on the vegetative level.

Thus, we speak about a qualitative development and not about a quantitative development: At the end of the still phase, in its last fourth phase, I already understand from the experience I had that I can change by myself, consciously and purposefully. Then the opportunity to move from the last phase of the still to the phase of the vegetative is born. It is here that its initial point is created by the changes in the desire.

Every such change comes from the Creator in the form of the reviving force. I could never find the preliminary conditions for growing inside me. Therefore the Creator doesn’t just develop me; He inserts His force of creation inside me so that I will resemble Him. As a result of this development, we and the Creator become partners in the creation. His goal is not to increase the desire to receive, by putting it through a series of changes, but rather to teach me His art. What is more He teaches me in a qualitative manner.

Thus, thanks to everything we go through, we attain His actions, according to the rule: “From Your actions we shall know You.”
[83418]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

Related Material:
Growing On The Creator’s Supplements
To Become Nothing And Stand Before The Creator
HaVaYaH: The Phases Of Growth Of The Mind And Heart

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Evolution, Group Work, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A - 1 Comment →

There is only one desire that was created—to receive pleasure and delight—and there is nothing else that can be attributed to the created being. Everything else is the correction of the creation, the external form the desire to receive can take on as the Light influences it.

There is the upper one, which is bestowal and there is the lower, which is receiving. The lower can receive such bestowal from the upper that will change its external form; like a wolf that is in sheep’s clothing, it is still a wolf! This is actually what we do with our ego, with the evil in us, by trying to give it a form that is similar to the Creator.

We should understand that everything takes place within the desire to receive, since this makes us face the fact that everything depends on us and everything takes place in us. There is nothing on the outside; all of reality is inside us, in our desire to receive.

The desire always remains a desire, and I mustn’t try to change it. I shouldn’t increase it or decrease it, torture myself by fasting or beat myself. I only have to demand that the Creator change the form of my desire and make it similar to Him.

There are no other actions, except turning to the Light, by which I can attain a real change. I will only harm myself and distort nature by any other way. How can I do something with my desires by myself? It is even ridiculous to expect this. If a person acts this way, he distorts his whole way, his perception, his understanding, and his approach.

This is what all of humanity does, by hoping to achieve something by different actions like revolutions in science and in society. All our actions so far, starting from the time we came down from the trees, became human, and began to develop, were only meant to show us that all these actions were wrong.

Now we are on the verge of a change, and by examining all our evolution we see that it is the egoistic desire that forced us to follow this whole way. Everything that we have done so far is one big mistake.

It was impossible to avoid it since it is impossible to advance without the revelation of evil. But the mistake was in trying to deal with our desires, to limit them or to fill them, and to change them by ourselves. We always hoped to reach a better life by that, but every time we were wrong and received blows instead of pleasures.

Now we have to weigh things: Is it worthwhile to go on this way? It is now impossible even if we would want to. We will not be able to move forward in order to go on corrupting our desire to receive; there is nowhere to go! All the systems have reached a dead end and cannot be fulfilled any further.

If we continue in the same direction, the only thing we can expect is a world war as the last definitive blow. We can either start by conscious changes or summon terrible afflictions upon us. But the whole process was necessary in order to bring us to the recognition of evil, to our approach to correcting ourselves and the world.
[82947]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/02/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

Related Material:
Closing The Chain Of Desire
And The Darkness Will Shine Like The Light
A Candle In The Heart

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Evolution, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →

Human evolution occurs as a result of the development of the ego. By existing within inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature, a person constantly and dynamically develops under the influence of the egoistic desires that overcome the simple primitive desires and become more and more complex.

The desires are divided into physical ones for food, sex, and family, and into human ones for wealth, respect, control, and knowledge, and spiritual needs.

If we divide the time axis on which humanity develops into sections, then since about the 5th century BC until the 5th century AD people aspired for wealth. Of course, the exact time is debatable since it all depends on which civilizations we are looking at.

From the 5th century until the 15th century, the desire for power and respect grew. The Middle Ages isn’t just a period of time in which humanity froze, but a period of deep internal development that is typified by very serious events, such as the Crusades, etc.

The next stage in the development of the desire is from the 15th century until the 20th century and it is typified by the yearning for knowledge.

After that, everything began to wane and from the beginning of the 20th century we started a new era, the era of the conscious necessity of attaining the meaning of life.

Although we come across the first psychological quests in the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt, Plato, and the ancient Greeks, it was all on a level that doesn’t yet touch the inner essence of man, since it wasn’t revealed in ordinary people yet and not in great personalities that could be studied.

Only after fulfilling the physical desires and the human ones did we enter the area of the spiritual needs that belong to a person’s soul, which means not the way he lives, what he invents, and how he manages in life, but the essence of his existence, his personality, and the meaning of his development. Then the serious question regarding knowledge appeared. Here psychology was born. It happened at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, but on the whole it all leads to our times.

After the first phase of the development of psychology, its gradual waning and the disappointment in its abilities began. The shift from research and new discoveries to mere psychological work made people feel tranquil instead of showing them the process of their development and raising and developing them.

By understanding how much we don’t understand this process, by perceiving to what extent we don’t perceive the goal of our development, psychology seems to have turned to a narrow practical area, shrinking and limiting itself to practical applications, limited by the training of different experts, by publishing different articles, and by calming people using different methods. The result was that psychologists began to serve people instead of taking people and raising them to the next level of development, which was actually expected of psychology.
[81325]
From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 5/24/12

Related Material:
Freud Is Not My Consultant
Total Disappointment
The Bottomless Pit Of Desires

Filed under: Egoism, Evolution, Integral Upbringing - No Comments →

Opinion (Peter Thiel, billionaire Facebook investor, former PayPal CEO, and Palantir co-founder): “For most of recent human history—from the invention of the steam engine in the late 17th century through about the late 1960’s or so—technological process has been tremendous, perhaps even relentless. In most prior human societies, people made money by taking it from others. The industrial revolution wrought a paradigm shift in which people make money through trade, not plunder.

“The zenith of optimism about the future of technology might have been the 1960’s. People believed in the future. They thought about the future. Many were supremely confident that the next 50 years would be a half-century of unprecedented technological progress.

“But with the exception of the computer industry, it wasn’t. Per capita incomes are still rising, but that rate is starkly decelerating. Median wages have been stagnant since 1973. People find themselves in an alarming Alice-in-Wonderland-style scenario in which they must run harder and harder—that is, work longer hours—just to stay in the same place. This deceleration is complex, and wage data alone don’t explain it. But they do support the general sense that the rapid progress of the last 200 years is slowing all too quickly.”

My Comment: All the years of development after 1960 have not been beneficial for mankind. We need to rise to the next level and strive to achieve goals other than the material ones that no longer can satisfy and benefit us.
[80792]

Related Material:
The End Of Human Development Or A New Beginning?
Egoism At The Finish Line
Man’s Responsibility To Rebuild Society

Filed under: Crisis, Economy, Egoism, Evolution, History, News, Society - No Comments →