Question: You have suggested that I should try to feel “there is none else besides Him,” to imagine it, because it is not the reality I am in….

Answer: This is not the problem. The problem is nullifying yourself to such a degree that you feel that only the Creator exists.

Question: How? I don’t feel that He exists in our reality.

Answer: Ask. You turn towards a force that you don’t feel and ask Him to give you the possibility of feeling Him.

Feeling Him means becoming like Him. It means nullifying yourself since the feeling of self occurs because you are opposite to Him. And to that degree that you nullify yourself, you feel Him.

He and I cannot exist simultaneously. So you ask Him to nullify you, and with this, you will become like Him.

Repeat this many times together with the friends, and this will gradually begin to enter into your emotions. There is no other way.
[130111]
From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/04/14, Lesson 1

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Section 8: Therefore, come and see how grateful we should be to our teachers, who impart us their sacred Lights and dedicate their souls to do good to our souls. They stand in the middle between the path of harsh torments and the path of repentance.

They save us from the netherworld, which is harder than death, and accustom us to reach the heavenly pleasures, the sublime gentleness and the pleasantness that is our share, ready and waiting for us from the very beginning, as we have said above. Each of them operates in his generation, according to the power of the Light of his Torah and sanctity.

It is difficult to describe what would have been if the Kabbalists had not prepared and given us the wisdom of Kabbalah with all of the preparations and corrections that they made in the higher system, whose essence we wouldn’t even know yet if they had not written all the books for us. It is like a baby born in today’s world in a hospital with all the latest medical equipment.

A multitude of instruments monitor his health and the health of his mother, so the birth process is much easier than it was a hundred years ago. What wonderful food and treatment has been created for him, everything possible. And after that, he goes to kindergarten, elementary school, and university, and is educated. The world took the trouble for thousands of years to give a person born today all of the best for his development.

But the infant who is born doesn’t understand and is not aware of this. That is also how we seem to the Kabbalists who prepared the correction of the systems of worlds for us and who through their correction raised Lights in it from below to above to the highest level. It is just like a newborn baby gets all of the services in a safe, secure world that is ready to accept him and to give him the best of everything.

It is yet to be revealed to us what great and powerful systems the Kabbalists prepared for us to help us be born in the spiritual world. And they also wrote books for us through which we can study and awaken ourselves. Everything has been done thanks to these great Tzadikim (righteous). Without them we would not be able to go out to the spiritual world.

Adam HaRishon and Abraham could do this themselves since they were very refined souls. Therefore they could discover the Creator without preliminary work in a group and suffering, but only thanks to the refined souls that worked within them. But in our state, with our dense ego, at the end of six thousand years, we cannot approach spirituality without their help.
[129987]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati, #25, “Things That Come From The Heart”: Regarding things that come from the heart, enter the heart. Hence, why do we see that even if things have already entered the heart, one still falls from his degree? Why do we see that even if things do enter a person’s heart he still falls from his spiritual level? We see that even if a person is impressed by what the teacher conveys to him, he still falls from the level on which he received the Torah, the intention and the thoughts of the teacher.

The thing is that when one hears the words of Torah from his teacher, i.e., the wisdom of his teacher, he immediately agrees with his teacher, and resolves to observe the words of his teacher with his heart and soul, because he really wants it to be fulfilled. But afterwards, when he comes out to the world, he sees, covets, and is infected by the multitude of desires roaming the world, that is, to other people’s desires, thoughts, and plans dealing with all sorts of nonsense and not spiritual development in this case, and he and his mind, his heart, and his will are annulled before the majority, that is, those conditions the environment is in.

As long as he has no power to judge the world to a scale of merit, they subdue him. He mingles with their desires…. What does that mean? If I am in a foreign environment, it is the Creator Who plays with me and Who places me there in different external conditions so that I will grow stronger with regard to the inner decisions that I have already made, despite the external influences that appear.

Suppose I am on my way home from the convention now and when I get on the plane I am already under the domination of a foreign environment. Can I remain in the same inner condition that I felt during the three conventions—concentrated, focused on the goal, feeling elated and feeling my friends—when I am under external conditions that pressure me? If I can, it is a state in which I control the outside world; if I can’t, it means that the outside world controls me.

But afterwards, when he comes out to the world, he sees, covets, and is infected by the multitude of desires i.e., society at large, dealing with nonsense, then if he cannot overcome himself, his thoughts, desires, and heart obey the majority.

Overcoming the multitude consists of two parts.

First, when I realize that I am detached from the support of the friends, I myself internally alienate them and keep away from them.

Secondly, I don’t see that everything is managed by the Creator anymore and that the thoughts of the multitude are sent to me on purpose so that I will tighten the connection with the group, with the sources even more than before, and will regard the external effect as the Creator’s game. After all, He sends me “helpers,” guards who want to throw me down the mountain I have been climbing on my way to the Creator, but I keep moving forward, holding on with my teeth in order to stay above the water and in the right direction. No matter what the influence of the environment is, I don’t go along with the current, but rather row towards my goal.

As long as he has no power to judge the world to a scale of merit…

After all, the Creator works for a person through the whole world! If I justify the world because it actually operates in order to help me advance, it means “to judge the world to the scale of merit.”

But if I cannot judge the whole world to the scale of merit, which means to draw it in my direction, realizing that the Creator sends me these obstacles on purpose so that I will advance more strongly; if I cannot connect to my friends and to the goal more strongly, then the world becomes external and the Creator disappears from it. If I forget that He is the one who has arranged everything and think that the world influences me by itself, the Creator disappears from it and I am left under the dominion of this world. … they subdue him. He mingles with their desires, i.e., a person diverts from the goal.

Then, when a person subdues to the desires of the world that surrounds him, he is led like sheep to the slaughter. He has no choice; he is compelled to think, want, crave, and demand everything that the majority demands; that is, he is under the domination of the external society. This is also under the authority of the Creator. He shouldn’t think that anything other than Him operates here. But this is a completely different control, not I shall hasten it (Achishena), but in its time (Beito). He then chooses their alien thoughts and their loathsome lusts and desires, which are alien to the spirit of the Torah. In that state he has no strength to subdue the majority, and goes along with the current, like the rest of the world.

Instead, there is only one counsel then, to cling to his teacher and to the books. This is called “From the mouth of books and from the mouth of authors.” He has to hold on with his teeth to the lessons and to the sources and to choose what is closer to him and what impresses him most strongly. It may be a certain article or a passage from TES, a song, anything. What’s important is that it should strengthen his connection with our society. Only by cleaving to them can he change his mind and will for the better. However, witty arguments will not help him change his mind, but only the remedy of Dvekut (adhesion), for this is a wondrous cure, as the Dvekut reforms him.

Only while one is inside Kedusha (Sanctity) can one argue with oneself and indulge in clever polemics that the mind necessitates that he should always walk on the path of the Creator. But this is all nonsense. However, one should know that even when he is wise and certain that he can already use this wit to defeat the Sitra Achra (other side), one must bear in mind, that all his wit and nice conclusions, the studying and the agreement with the friends, that all this is worthless. This is not an armament that can defeat the war on desire, for all these concepts are but a consequence he has attained after the aforementioned Dvekut.

Everything depends on how strongly a person ties himself to the group. After all, he has to speak to his friends on the phone, to contact them on the Internet, to prepare some material for them, to participate in the daily work. If he doesn’t do that, nothing will help. We are the ones who need the dissemination and not those to whom we disseminate. It compels us to be in constant movement and to improve. This is the only way we can advance!

What I say is based on my personal experience. Unfortunately I can think of 30-40 people who I once brought to Rabash who also engage in Kabbalah to a certain extent now, but you can feel what it means to study Kabbalah without advancement when you speak to them.

In other words, all the concepts upon which he builds his building, saying one must always follow in the path of the Creator, is founded in the Dvekut with his teacher. Thus, if he loses the foundation, then all the concepts are powerless, since they will now be lacking the foundation. Hence, one must not rely on one’s own mind, but cleave once more to books and authors, for only that can help him, and no wit and intellect, as they are lifeless.

In principle, this article says that everything that is sent to us in life is sent to us intentionally by the Creator, and we mustn’t forget it. We have to take advantage of all the obstacles in order to advance and to grow stronger in our advancement.

In fact there are no interferences. All these obstacles and barriers are a springboard. If we overcome them we will advance; if not, it means that we will have to overcome them indirectly. Everything depends on our participation.

The point is that we are not given any obstacles from Above that cannot be overcome. The Upper Light operates in a manner that is adapted to each of us according to our personal circumstances. All the obstacles that we encounter are always adapted to our abilities. It’s the ego that we have to correct on the next level. If a person remembers that, he adheres even more strongly to the advancement towards the Creator, to the teacher, the books, and the group.

Thus, he is not controlled by the external environment, although he is in good relations with it, but internally he is loyal to himself and to the environment. Moreover, gradually and without words, he begins to influence the environment so that it suddenly begins to change.

Let’s keep the connection between us so that the impression of the week we spent united, feeling wholeness between us, and in a wonderful state will only grow stronger! After all, we will each go our own way and each one will receive his own interferences and we have to keep the spirit of mutual guarantee and be committed that nothing will detach us from the group and that we will overcome all the obstacles and feel that we are together as if we have never gone our own ways.

If the interferences don’t pull us in different directions, we will feel the connection between us even more strongly, and this is actually what we need. If we can do that, then there are no words that can describe the level to which we will immediately ascend. We can fulfill our dream within the coming week! If we all, regardless of the distance between us, think about the fact that our friends should remain connected just as they are now, we can be sure that the Messiah will come. The word Messiah stems from the Hebrew word “Moshech,” “to pull,” and the Upper Light is revealed that completes all the corrections, pulling a person out of his ego to full adhesion with the Creator.
[129190]
From a lesson in Russian, 2/07/14

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If I see negative things outside myself, it means that I have to correct myself and then I will not see anything that is bad or negative. A friend who has troubles will seem very successful to me.

In the article “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation,” Baal HaSulam says that we see the friends as losers, ill, unsuccessful, etc. But the moment we correct ourselves, we will see that they are healthy, rich, and successful. This means that I actually have to correct myself.

But there is another way to help them become healthy, rich, and successful. I correct things by approaching the friends and correcting myself directly in them, and then I see that they are successful.

The right correction is actually my inner correction. By correcting the friends and thus seeing that they are successful is an indirect, alternative correction, not a direct correction.

A direct correction is correcting my relationship with the Creator and seeing that the whole world is repaired and corrected. The whole world is my vessel, and if I identify any deficiencies in it, then this means that the problem is in me because everything is already in a corrected state.

The world didn’t undergo the shattering. I am the only one who is shattered; the part that identifies the corruptions is the one who has undergone the shattering. Everything else is whole. I only need to correct myself, and then I will see that the whole world is in the Garden of Eden, in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity).

But we have been given an easy way to correct ourselves by mutual inclusion: I come to the world and help correct it by taking the shattered parts in the world and raising them as MAN, as a prayer. The world is the lower level, I am the intermediate level, and the Creator is the upper level, which means that I perform the priests’ work. This, however, isn’t a direct correction, but an indirect one by mutual inclusion and consistent actions.

Question: It turns out that I will see the outcome of the correction only after I correct myself internally?

Answer: Of course! Otherwise how can you say: “I see”? You cannot see the correction if you don’t correct yourself. The only question is whether you operate directly towards the Creator or in an alternative, indirect way.
[130095]
From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/14

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Question: What is the correct way to pray when I see that a friend has a problem and I want to ask on his behalf?

Answer: It says: “He who prays for his friend is rewarded first.” Indeed I don’t need to pray for the friend because he only seems ill to me.

Yet I cannot perceive this corruption as my own, and I am not close enough to the friend to feel his pain and his illness as my own. So I pray for him as if he is external to me.

Therefore, “He who prays for his friend is rewarded first,” because I am actually the one who is ill if I see a sick friend. And that’s why I need to be healed, and not the friend who only seems ill.

Correcting myself means, seeing all of creation the way it is in the eyes of the Creator: seeing the whole world from the perspective of a person who is fully corrected in his desire to receive, which means that all his vessels are in order to bestow.
[130091]
From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/16/14

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Question: Baal HaSulam published the paper HaUma (The Nation) in the 1940’s in which he warned about the approaching disaster. We are facing the same problems today. What does it mean to take them more seriously? What is lacking in our work?

Answer: We should simply do what Baal HaSulam says in the paper HaUma and in the article “The Last Generation.” It’s the same method, the same connection, and we just need to do the same things.

You worry about what will happen to a billion and a half Chinese. I cannot say, but I know that half a million Jews can do the work for the whole world. So I worry about dissemination in Israel first. If we succeed here, things will work out in the world.

The correction, which means the connection, must first take place in the Israeli nation. Then it will spread to the rest of the world. We are in the general network of connection between the shattered souls, and if we correct ourselves, not even the whole nation but just a part that corrects itself a bit in the connection between us, the force of connection will already spread among all the nations and will bring everyone to correction.

We must take everything that happens very seriously and leave everything but dissemination, studying, and the spiritual work. Dissemination is very important. Judging by how the world is approaching the path of in its time, the path of sufferings, we have to make greater efforts in order to put it on the path of I shall hasten it, the path of the Light.
[130233]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/17/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: We stay to work in groups of five after the lesson today, but the truth is that I don’t feel like it…

Answer: Reluctance is a reaction by default, that isn’t worth speaking about. Of course I prefer to do what I like now, like lying on the sofa watching a football game with a beer and nuts, with the remote control in my hand, and let everyone leave me alone. Before the game begins, in expectation of the desired pleasure, I will even tell my wife how much I love her again.

But sitting with friends is not a pleasure. In fact it isn’t a pleasure being here, and no one says otherwise.

Question: Does that mean that I should do what I don’t want to my whole life?

Answer: No. My whole life is tied to the greatest most sublime goal: I am going to reveal the Creator and this is the greatest reward. What is more, there is an even greater reward, which is being able to delight the Creator without any self benefit.

Never mind if this seems unrealistic today and something that I cannot imagine, I belong to and am incorporated in things that don’t exist anywhere else. Recognizing this importance gives me support.

Of course, the upper Light sustains us now. It operates on the point in the heart and doesn’t let us escape. On the contrary, if it illuminated the egoistic desire to receive instead of the point in the heart, I would immediately disappear inside the group without a trace.

Question: Will I ever agree with my desire?

Answer: No. After all this state is filth, it is a Klipa.

Question: Does this mean that I will never do what I want?

Answer: You will do what you don’t want in your desire to receive but what you want in the desire to bestow. I establish everything above the desire to receive, above “what I feel like.” The goal is so important for me that I feel pleasure in bestowal. Now this idea is above everything for me, and I cannot identify with my corporal part any more, I don’t disrespect it, I take what I need from it, what is essential, but my heart is in the group, in bestowal.

So stay after the lesson not because you have been told to do so but because of the greatness of the moment. After all, this meeting with the friends brings you closer to a very high level. The sublime goal gives you powers not to forget the mutual guarantee and evokes the friends to care for each other.

On the whole I am not to blame if I don’t keep this direction the whole day, the group is to blame; blame one another and then each one will feel his blame from everyone. Generally, even if it seems like a paradox, it’s easier to think about others in the current state than about yourself. I am committed to care about the friends “like a man,” and that’s it, period. My conscience doesn’t let me escape from the responsibility and I will fight for my friends like in a commando unit.
[129596]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/16/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How is it possible to arrive at a collective decision so that our ego will not grow and go out of bounds?

Answer: It’s impossible to stop the growth of the ego. In any case it will grow and be discovered more and more. If you don’t correct it, then it will be revealed incorrectly, and if you correct it, it will be revealed correctly, meaning as its opposite, with the characteristic of bestowal.

This is our entire evolution: From above the Light operates all the time, and from below the Reshimot are revealed more and more. And so every year, every day, every minute, we experience more and more powerful new desires and thoughts, greater and greater possibilities; only we don’t feel it.

Therefore the ego will grow constantly. We only need to equip ourselves with tools for its correction.
[129885]
From a lesson in Russian, 2/2/2014

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Question: Why is fear the first Mitzva that includes within it all the Mitzvot of the Torah?

Answer: Fear is a characteristic of Malchut reached through the desire to receive. If I work with the desire to receive in order to correct it, I am standing on the right point from which I can always begin. Every level begins from fear. Every time I fall and begin to build the next level, I first experience all kinds of fears.

Question: If I fall, then I fall. Why must there be fear in this?

Answer: First it is necessary to clarify what is called falling. If you have a bad mood or a bad feeling, this is not a fall. A fall is an inability to approach the Creator, to bestow to Him. I fall if I lose interest in the friends, the desire to be with them, and to feel the warmth and closeness in our connection. Everything depends on this according to what I check regarding my fall.

I feel bad because I don’t have love for others, and from this I don’t have love for the Creator. It is specifically this condition that I establish as a descent. When I come to a group, I don’t feel any desire to connect with the friends to discover the love between us that is called the Creator.

If I perceive that I don’t have a desire like this, this is already good; this indicates that I am in exile. Attaining exile is a great attainment because I see that “there is no divinity within me” (Devarim 31:17).
[129985]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/14

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Question: What else is there to do after it has already become clear that everything depends only on the Light that Reforms?

Answer: That is, from now on I only look at how to awaken and to attract the Light to me more. I understand that this is the only remedy, and I am a sick man lying unconscious and depend upon this Light one hundred percent. Each and every moment that I abandon this Light, I am dying, and as long as I am held within it, I continue to live. I live within this feeling.

Question: But what can continuously hold us in a feeling like this?

Answer: Fear! Fear that the Light will leave me. It is very important for me to be healthy, to advance through the power of bestowal. This becomes my eternal concern, a real obsession.

I feel myself in a field of forces that shakes me all the time, agitating like waves in the sea, unable to relax. The group must provide me with a field like this. A person cannot do anything by himself.

First and foremost, a mutual feeling in the group like this is imperative for us, where we depend upon the Upper Light, the help of the Creator; we must awaken this all the time. That is how we transform the path of “in its time” (Beito) to the way of “I will hasten it” (Achishena). This is the realization of mutual guarantee.

Question: Where exactly is the freedom of choice of a person? Through which actions does he attract the Light to himself?

Answer: I must yearn for the Light that Reforms and to be integrated into a group so that it will hold me in a connection with the Light and in anticipation that with the help of the Light, I will change myself and will begin to be concerned about the Creator. In the meantime, I don’t know what giving contentment to the Creator is, but at least I begin to be care about Him as about a friend.
[129572]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/9/14

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