“Introduction toThe Book of Zohar,” “The Torah and a Prayer”, Item 182: Come and see an advice for a person: when he goes to bed at night, he should take upon himself the kingship of above wholeheartedly and come early to deposit his soul to Him. …

And when he does so, the governance of the night cannot blemish him any longer and arrest him from the pleasantness of the work of the Creator, for to him, the evening and the morning are one day, and the night is only a real part of the day. Hence, he is immediately saved from any bad illnesses and from all the evil spirits, which do not control him, for his night has already parted the domain of the Sitra Achra, since nothing can ever part him and the holy Divinity, and the forces of the Sitra Achra and the Din do not govern him any longer.

How can we turn the night into day? Of course there is no night or day, and it only seems that way in my corrupt desires. If additional deficiencies are evoked in me and it is time to correct them, I feel darkness in them, night. Night is lack of unity, lack of the revelation of the Creator, the force of bestowal that should fill all my vessels.

My vessels are my reality. The whole world is my vessel, all of the still, vegetative, animate nature, and human beings are inside me. If this vessel is filled by the force of love and mutual bestowal that unites everything into one whole, then there are no big or small, distant or near; everything is one. Because love covers all the sins and erases all the differences. This means that I discover the Creator, He fills me, and I unite with Him.

But there are still more uncorrected desires in me that I have never felt and seen, and they suddenly begin to rise and to appear. So I begin to think badly about the friends, the group, the teacher, and the Creator. I am thrown from side to side until I ascend to the last ultimate level of the end of correction, and until then I discover deeper and worse levels of my ego of increasingly greater Aviut (coarseness). I am thrown very far from spirituality or even become totally unaware that I was ever in spirituality and that I have left it now. The coarse levels of the corrupt Aviut that are revealed in me will be so coarse that they can totally disconnect me from the feeling and recognition I had before.

Then I feel night in these desires. Night is the force of separation and it isn’t just darkness and loss of interest in spirituality and the goal. I am either thrown to a state of total helplessness or I disrespect the spiritual goal and the group and I am aware of that, or I may totally lose this recognition and descend back into this world worrying only about my corporeal existence, which means that I lose even the human level of this world and descend further and further down to the animal level until I totally fall unable to move, like a corpse.

All these forces that separate me from adhesion to the Creator, from the one force that dominates and fills all of reality with the attribute of love and bestowal, are called darkness and night. But there is an angel called night that actually brings the drop of semen to the Creator and asks, “What will be born from it?” This means that night is actually the force that brings the drop of semen from which a human develops. A person is reborn every day and has to determine his own fate: whether to be wicked or a righteous.
[126143]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Why are we sometimes shaken to the extent that we simply cannot tolerate our condition? We wake up in the morning and everything is against us…

Answer: These “shakes” are not against you, but rather they give you a chance to wake up. Would you want to climb a steep hill if you woke up in the morning and saw birds singing, the sun shining, everything blossoming, green grass around you, and caressing waves splashing against the seashore?

How can anyone advance without resistance? You have to understand that we really are in need of the left line! We should never cast it aside or cancel it, but rather work with it and bind it to us as if it’s written in stone in our brain: “Nothing is extra in this world.” We should be thankful for going through even the worst things and encountering terrible enemies. Those who prevent us from disseminating Kabbalah, who slander us, are vitally essential to us. Without them, we won’t be able to stabilize ourselves correctly.

It’s impossible to shape ourselves without destructive forces that press upon us. Because of them, we can format, build, and frame ourselves. We cannot advance without the second alternative force and only by being under the influence of one force, the force of benevolence. We would go crazy if the only force we encountered would be a good, benevolent power that has no limits.

We always act inside certain boundaries. Going beyond the limits would mean positioning the entire left line against the right one. At this time, we are only beginning this work and that’s why we should regard it in a very simple way: “From this moment on, I should bear in mind that my life is the intertwining of two opposite forces; it’s extremely important that we accept that both of them compose my life .” We shouldn’t expect the forces that we dislike to suddenly disappear. It just won’t happen.

Look how our bodies work. Life is possible only where there is interaction, connection, digestion, and metabolism.

Comment: I can comprehend it with my brain, but when the Light starts pressing on me even a little harder, I cannot stand it.

Answer: There is only one recipe: cling to the center of the group. Now you already see that you need a “shield,” otherwise you will never be certain of what will happen to you the next moment, or else, you be in genuine fear instead of playing with the toys that you are given at this time. Deliverance can be found only in the center of the group. If you hold onto it, you will be saved.
[124912]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/27/13, Shamati #72 “Confidence is the Clothing for the Light”

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Question: I noticed that  over time, I gradually become less sensitive by the standards of this world.

Answer: You become less sensitive to some things and more sensitive to others. The main thing is to be sensitive to the connection with the friends, the group, and to be generally sensitive to being incorporated. This is what should impress you and cause an inner shivering, that should pressure you and excite you and cause you pain and joy.

You should look at all the corporeal aspects of life like food, sex, family, money, respect, and knowledge as useful and essential aspects only. I need all this in order to advance normally, on a level that “is not condemned and is not praised.” Make sure you have all the basic necessities and use this world according to your needs, but be above it in your thoughts and your intentions. Don’t be overenthusiastic or ascetic. Don’t regret what happens to you in this world. Don’t devote to this world any more than it deserves. On the corporeal level, you should use it rationally, and in sensation, you yearn for connection with the Creator through the group.
[125983]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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“Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Article, “Torah and Prayer,” Section 183: And in the morning, when he rises from his bed, he should bless his Master, walk into His home and bow before His hall with great fear. And then he should pray his prayer… .

It is clear that this is not talking about the physical body awakening from sleep. Morning is a state when a new spirit reaches a person from integration in a group, from studying, workshops, and connection with others. He has no other way of receiving spiritual strength except through the environment. If he tries to go deeper into the group and be integrated with the friends, he can draw powers from there.

And this group can be small from the start. That is, they don’t need to have revealed any spiritual forces, but this is unimportant. If a person knows how to enter and be integrated with them, he will receive power for advancement, as in the well-known example of Rabbi Yosi ben Kisma.
[126104]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Our world seems very confusing to us even though it is designed to direct and bring us by the shortest, nicest, and most comfortable way toward discovery of the Creator. However, because we are egoists, opposite to the characteristics of the Creator, we are forced to be in confusion all the time, discovering and clarifying the confusion and the opposition, resolving it, transforming it into the right state, and thus taking a step forward.

This is like a children’s game when a child is blindfolded, turned around so that he will be confused, and then directed in the right direction and leave him. With his eyes covered, he must find the required goal. That is how it happens with us at every moment in life where we don’t know and don’t understand what is happening. We are confused.

It is clear that it is impossible to make the right decision with our intellect. And even if we decide to act in opposition to Him, this also won’t help because, in spite of it all, we receive every decision according to our ego: “for” or “against.”

But, we have no possibility of finding the right decision within our ego, and therefore, the only thing that is left for us is to go with our eyes shut, and someone will direct us. That is, I close my eyes and don’t want to go forward in any direction according to my choice and evaluation. I need for someone to give me the direction, so I need the environment and the teacher. It is the only way possible to advance.

It turns out that my spiritual advancement is one hundred percent in the hands of the environment. The environment is the teacher, the friends, and the Light that Reforms that does all the corrections after I give myself into the hands of the group and the teacher.

In the end, I must connect with the friends so much that I see the Shechina (holy divinity) in them, that the Creator dwells in them. If I go out of myself and dissolve within the society, then suddenly I see that this is not a society as it seemed to me before. Rather, this is the sacred Shechina. In other words, by going out of myself, I discover that the entire world is, in sum, the revelation of the Creator who dwells within all of His creatures. This is what the person discovers the moment that he is ready to shut his eyes and go with faith above reason.

Therefore, if I am ready to give myself over to a friend and I try to do this, with this I acquire the friend and reach a connection, and this action itself is called a donation (Truma), “contribution of the Creator.” I do that in order to awaken and elevate the characteristic of bestowal and place it at the head of my advancement, above the intellect and feelings and all of my decisions that the desire to receive always wants to present to me as rational things. Here, everything is going above the egoistic logic.
[125910]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/14

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Question: If a person is used to seeing us only on television or a computer screen, what would make him switch to an active phase and make him come to the February congress? After all, he feels good being at home, even if he agrees with what he is hearing.

Answer: Undoubtedly, it is more comfortable being at home.

In this case, everything depends on your free choice. First, do you have an opportunity to come to the congress? If everything was arranged from Above so that the answer is yes—if money, time, health, and other conditions that do not depend on you are granting you this possibility—then you are obliged to come.

It is a different matter if you were denied the ability to, let’s say, buy a ticket. Our friends are gathering from all over the world, including the most remote corners. For example, traveling from South America or Australia is very expensive. For some it is almost a prohibitive amount, yet they are coming.

This is where the freedom of choice comes in: If you were given an opportunity and you did not come, then you are simply rejecting the chance given to you by the Creator to come closer to Him, to arrive at a meeting with Him. After all, as it is written, “I the Lord dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.”

If you are not granted this possibility, if insurmountable obstacles, which truly do not depend on you, are placed in front of you, then you will be given the same direct connection while being on the other side of the screen, but only on the condition that, for given reasons, it must be exactly this way.

One way or another, the analysis is entrusted to you. I already have received dozens of letters with similar questions and I almost never answer because this is a person’s free choice. He or she needs to make this decision on their own. Sometimes, there are unsolvable problems usually related to health. In that case, I take the responsibility upon myself and send a reply.

Essentially, we need to understand that this is where freedom of will lies. If you can come, then you must, and, if you are not able to—well, the Creator has arranged it this way so that, by staying at home, you will receive even more than from physical participation. Perhaps the external impression from what you would have seen in person would have been so negative that it would have flung you to the side. Perhaps it would have entered into an irreconcilable contradiction with your tastes, habits, and so on.

In any case, however, a person needs to make this decision on his own. He only needs to seize this opportunity because it is now that he can make a true breakthrough on the path.
[125899]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/19/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: When does a person get to see that everything that happens in his life comes only from the Creator?

Answer: A person gets to see, as it is written, “There is none else besides Him” when he rises to complete faith and is ready to work without any response or reaction from the Creator, from the only power. He stops hoping to receive some kind of answer within his receptive Kli to see the Creator and to be convinced that this comes from Him. Only then will he merit feeling the only higher guidance, for otherwise everything goes into his egoistic, receptive Kli.

You are waiting for when you will actually see that the Creator is doing everything and you can prove that everything is right and you are ultimately be released from all doubts. However, this gain would be felt within your ego, so you will never get it. You simply don’t understand what the path is. You must discover more each time that it is impossible to advance on this path through your corporeal senses and intellect but only through the force of bestowal and the total nullification of the self.

If you let go of everything that you have now, then you will reach a level of spirituality that becomes a nullification of this life. Besides the necessities for the beastly body, all the rest of life goes on in full self-nullification.

You discover that “There is none else besides Him” after you construct this single Creator within yourself.

Nullification is realized within a group. I throw myself into the hands of the friends, but this is so they will take care of me. I hand myself over, and at that moment, I feel that there is a system here like called a “group” and it is concerned about me.

Question: However, what if I give myself over to the friends and I suffer?

Answer: If you suffer, this is a sign that you have not given yourself over. I give myself over happily! I am happy that I don’t use my feelings or my intellect for I have friends, a teacher, the Creator! I don’t exist by myself. I only adhere myself to them and this is all. They are my head and I am only the operator, their body. Whatever they desire, I carry out.

This is what is called adhesion. I want to exist like this. And as much as all kinds of problems, egoism, and heaviness of heart are added to me, I aspire to adhere to them even more. I want them to decide for me. This is not saying that I release myself from any responsibility to make life easier for myself. I do this because I want to adhere to what is higher—and for the upper to be my head and I will be the body. I will receive all orders, all instructions, from it.

I don’t ask the Creator when He will be revealed. I don’t need to discover Him. I want to nullify myself and not discover Him.
[125817]
From a Talk during the Meal 1/17/14

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Question: Do you ever have the feeling that we don’t have time to manage to do something?

Answer: The feeling that “we don’t have time” isn’t relevant for me. I am already an elderly person who knows how much time I have left. I simply want to see a clearly assembled organization that is connected to the masses and to the Creator, and begins to work seriously. This is an organization called the “State of Israel.”

In this case, the State of Israel is not a geographic concept. It consists of different interconnected functional blocks, part of which operate in order to sustain themselves both physically and spiritually.

The part that is connected to the Creator is the Kohanim (Cohens – priests). The part that provides the ideological basis is the Levites. The part that provides the material basis is the people. And together they all tied to connect with all the outside world, and they have many connections with the masses, with all countries, and with all of humanity. This is how it all works.

If I could at least see a prototype of such an organization, I might not be in such a hurry anymore. And although it’s already looming, it is not enough; there is no clear contact with the general public; there is still no contact with the Creator,

The contact with the lower and the contact with the upper are mutually dependent and we are in the middle. The more we manage to approach the general public successfully, the more will need the Creator correctly, and will thus receive help from Above.
[125973]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/19/13

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To become integrated into others and breaking the huge resistance at the entrance is possible only due to self-nullification. Then I can sneak into the system like a virus, and it will not feel me. It is so hard to defend against viruses because they know how to become invisible to the bodily defense systems.

To the extent that each of us will feel and represent the group as a complete zero, the more he will be able to be included in it. You should nullify yourself to the maximum and thus you attain greater integration than others. It is in this that we should compete with each other: Who can nullify himself more. Everyone should strive to this and awaken others.

The group will become more connected as each friend will increasingly nullify himself before the others. When this mutual inclusion reaches the minimal degree, we will turn into one whole and immediately feel our first connection with the Creator. Since we have cancelled our own egoistic form and are ready to become clay in the hands of the Master, the form of the Creator will be manifested in us.

Then more egoism is added and we again have to cancel ourselves in order to be included into each other. Thus, we work until we merge into one whole that has no form and are ready for anything, that is, agree to become clay in the hands of the Master. Then we again obtain the form of the Creator: more accurately and specifically and will know Him even more.

The Creator will begin to dominate us and fill us with His multifaceted properties, clothing into all our thoughts and desires and giving them His form. Thus, for the first time we reach such a state that only the form of the Upper will be present in our material.

However, on the path to this state, some parts are able to agree to it, while others may not agree, and that is why they are contracted and separated from others. In this way, our progress occurs: The main thing is mutual inclusion, and it happens only due to self-nullification relative to those with whom you want to be included.
[126063]
From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/14

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Question: Why must our way to attain the good, the beautiful go through the discovery of the evil of our nature? And besides this, at first, we don’t even realize that this evil is in us, rather we see it in others, until we transform it into our own in the end.

All the faults that we see in others are a result of my own flaws. If I see bad characteristics in others, this indicates that this evil always was in me and now it’s revealed to me. And I must transfer the guilt in my direction; that is, to realize that this is my personal deficiency and to correct it within me. But why does the Creator reveal the evil to me in this form?

Answer: If I prepare myself through the environment, the study, the teacher, the sources to the fact that “There is none else besides Him,” then all of the deficiencies and the evil that I see in others I can attribute it to myself immediately. For it is said, “Everyone judges according to his own flaws” Therefore I will be able to rejoice about all the “wicked that are revealed in me.” If they are revealed, this is a sign that I am ready to correct them and to transform them into good characteristics through connection with the friends and the “Prayer of the Many.”

That is how I will be happy about all the evil that is discovered in others and in me. I don’t “eat myself up” about whatever events or mistakes that I did in the past or the present, rather immediately I will understand that this is revealed in order to correct the evil.

Everything depends on the connection between us that makes it possible to hold each and every one with the right preparation and intention, in the right state, so that I will immediately be ready to accept all the evil that is discovered in the right form. It follows that all of the disturbances, the discoveries of evil in me or in others, the mistakes that are made and the clarification of the shattering, they are means to advancement.

The mistakes are not my fault, rather they were sent to me with the intention of helping me to advance. The Creator created all the evil, the evil inclination. And I only need to discover it, to learn from it, to demand correction and to see how the Creator corrects it. And from all these opposite forms of the evil before my correction and of the good after the correction, in these gaps, I learn about the Light from within the Darkness.

Everything depends on the degree to which we prepare ourselves to accept all of the discoveries of “evils” in a good and correct form. It’s only necessary to never forget that everything comes from the Creator and only to help us reach a sensation that “There is none else besides Him.”
[125886]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/19/14, Workshop

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