Question: The spiritual path goes only through points of friction where I disagree with the teacher and the group. How can I agree if I see that you are wrong?

Answer: Of course you see that the teacher is wrong. You also think that the Creator is wrong in having arranged this tough life in this world for us. Couldn’t He have made it peaceful, pleasurable, and serene?

This spiritual path is against your ego, which means against your desire and your mind. You must constantly rise above the points of friction, which are against your feelings and your mind, one by one, over and over again. These are the points that the spiritual path is made of that become a “door, an opening, and entrance” to adhesion with the Creator and with His creation: “He is one and His name is One.”

This step is always above your reason, where the next stage is. Everything else with which you agree—the pleasant meals together, the friends, the interesting trips—have nothing to do with spirituality! These are only accompanying factors that are meant to bring out the points of friction which are most important.

On the one hand, there is the ordinary life in this world, and on the other hand, there is the life in the group. All this works out very well on all sides. But you are stuck in the middle and cannot agree on certain points and you think to yourself: “Oh well never mind, this is nonsense, so what I if don’t agree! I agree with everything else.”

In your ordinary life you get married, you build a family, work, and do everything, and you live in the group, work with your friends, pay maaser, and participate in all the events. But in certain states you suddenly get stuck and cannot agree and cannot leap over them. At the same time, however, you take the right side or the left side without any problems. Of course, you don’t have a problem, since your ego agrees with everything that happens there.

You should only identify the place where there can be a door, an opening and an entrance. It is there where it hurts the most! You don’t want to evoke these points since this is where you feel the real friction, like a painful injection.

You are with everyone in your feelings and your mind! You love to study, to discuss spiritual matters, you love to spend time with the friends, you give them presents, you “buy the friends,” you invite them over. But sometimes it seems that when it comes to certain matters the group makes wrong decisions. You don’t object but wait quietly until the friends will finally grow up and understand their mistakes and correct them, which means, that they will agree with you. You understand that there is no alternative and nowhere to go since you admit that it is a wonderful, great, smart group and that nothing compares to it.

It is a very common attitude that is typical of most students, but gradually, after several years of study, you begin to feel and see these points of friction in which you get stuck. It is there, in these points, where the entrance that is about to open is. It isn’t a door but a wall, but by working in faith above reason, you will see a door in this wall that will immediately open up and become an opening and an entrance.

The entrance can only be in these points of friction and they are what you should look for and differentiate from everything else! Everything else is under the control of your ego. Only in these points of friction can there be the opening to another dimension by the power of faith.
[123211]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
The Light From The Top Of The Mountain
Feeling Small
Putting My Life In The Hands Of The Guide

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Teacher, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: A person comes to study when he is an adult with an existing perspective of life. So he partly agrees with what he hears from the teacher and carries it out and he partly disagrees. Can he develop spiritually with such split feelings?

Answer: It is natural for a person who hasn’t yet felt the spiritual world, and so because of this, he doesn’t see it in the teacher. It says “one judges by his own flaws.” So you see the corruptions in the teacher according to your own corruption.

Here you need the power of the group to speak to you and convince you that the teacher is great and important. If you respect and value the friends and work with them, you will be able to overcome your feeling of disrespect by the power of the group.

This disrespect is natural and logical, and it cannot be any other way. It was given to you on purpose from above, but at the same time you were given a tool, a means from above by which you can overcome it. You have to get closer to the group and through the group get closer to the Creator. This is why this order of work is arranged for you.

But if it doesn’t work out, the problem is not that you disrespect the teacher. It is natural to disrespect him. The point is that you disrespect the group! You cannot connect to the friends in order to receive the power by which you can break through all the barriers.

You need to overcome the egoistic rejection of the friends to some extent: Start getting closer to them during meals that you have together, while singing, and in different pleasant moments. Start from a distance from your ego so it feels it’s worthwhile to be with the friends. You were given a chance to receive power from the group and by that to adhere to the teacher, and through the teacher to adhere to the Creator, and thus gradually receive the Light that Reforms.

It is natural for your ego to instinctively object to everything that the teacher says. Only a fool doesn’t object since he doesn’t understand where he is. Your nature rejects the Creator, as it says: “A person’s inclination is evil from his youth,” and so you are opposite from the spiritual work and from the teacher; you are opposite from the inner essence of the group, but the group has an external form too by which you can gradually get close to it.

The greatest difficulty is that a person doesn’t perceive the group as a means that allows him to connect with the friends in order to adhere to the teacher together. The teacher will connect you all with the Creator. We don’t have to turn into Hasidim, but you do have to feel that you are small compared to the teacher, just like a person has to feel that he is small compared to the group and all the more so compared to the Creator.

Start managing and arranging things by using all the means that you were given in this world and put them in the right order: This is me, this is the group, this is the study, and this is the teacher. Everything else is unknown because it comes from the Creator, but this is your entrance to Holiness, where you suddenly see a door that immediately becomes an opening and you enter.

If you don’t fulfill this condition, nothing will work out. A person has to depict this to himself, even draw it and write it, and then continue and correct it every day. So you should clarify this question more and more, day by day, until you fulfill everything.

You should understand that it is about clear and accurate laws. If you don’t keep them, then you can go not only through this life but through the next couple of lives too. No matter how many times you return to this world, it will still be the same. The spiritual Reshimot (reminiscences) are not fulfilled on every level unless it goes through these special conditions!

Everything works according to certain laws in nature. It is because of our lack of understanding that we may think that there is no law here, but wherever we can discover it, we see that “He has given a law that cannot be broken.” We have to understand this, to learn these laws and keep them. Our ego doesn’t agree to that, but we can rise above it a bit. Why should we wait for the sufferings to force us to get away from our ego? It is better to do it of our own will, by our mind, which means by acquiring the values from the group. The group will help us keep away from our egoistic mind and will draw the Light that Reforms unto us that will build a new scale of priorities and different ways of thinking.
[123150]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
There Is No Adhesion With The Creator Without Respect For The Teacher And The Group
Working Without Any Compromises
Transmitting Spirituality From One Person To Another

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Teacher, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: If the external world is a reflection of my inner world, is this saying that the Kabbalistic group is also a part of the reflection of the soul, of the inner state? If so, why exactly is it important to work in a group? And what is the importance of the external world in all of this?

Answer: The importance of the external world is secondary compared to the group. Because you have a group, your reflections appear, mutual work is done with you. You work with people, you influence them reciprocally, and you feel how the Creator puts them opposite you. It could be that you don’t know exactly why He put you in such an opposite way to them, and they against you. But at least this is the result of your interaction with the Creator.

In what is the uniqueness, the specificity of our world? Let’s depict this in a sketch. There is the Creator; there is this world, within it is a group, and there is me. In principle, I must find the Creator. I must connect with Him; I must be like Him, to be equivalent to Him. Therefore I am called Adam, from the word “Domeh” (similar). I must reach the Creator.

And therefore this world was created such that through an immense amount of people, the group, I can find the Creator. Today I don’t see Him and don’t discover Him because I am opposite to Him: I have “minus” and with Him there is “plus.” We don’t understand and don’t feel each other. He indeed feels and understands me; you see He created all this, whereas I don’t understand and don’t feel Him.

So how can I find Him? In what convoluted way can I pass from “minus” to “plus”?

For this I was given interesting “information” called “this world” and the “group.” If I direct myself in adapting to them, then by going outside of myself to them, with this I direct my desires, oversee them, specifically oversee my intentions regarding them, I approach the Creator in this manner.

I only need to be sure that I am going outside of myself and entering this world, that I devote myself to the friends, am concerned about them.

But how is it possible to attain this? How to oversee my departure from the intention “for my own sake” to the intention “for the sake of the Creator”?

Therefore it is said: Do everything not for the sake of the Creator but for the sake of this world. So specifically to that degree, I approach the Creator. But essentially He is concealed behind the friends, and the moment that I position myself correctly regarding this world, I will immediately discover Him.

My integration into this world in 125 levels is absolutely identical to approaching the Creator with 125 levels. The moment that I rise to the first level of connection with this world, I immediately will begin to discover the Creator. He will be revealed to me in our world! He cannot be revealed in anywhere by itself.

Therefore, it is said: “From the love of the Creations to the love of the Creator.” This is not some kind of charitable condition. This is because the Creator is situated behind this world and is linked with it specifically with a link like this. It follows that through work in a group, I erase the boundaries that existed between the Creator and this world.

Why was this given to me? It is so that I will find Him independently and will advance independently, I will “adhere” to Him. Only for this was I given the external envelope of the Creator, which is called “this world” and the “group.”

From here, the words are understood, that the friend must be as important to me as the Creator. The group must be important in my eyes to the same degree as He is. In other words, everything that is outside of me, I must attribute to the Creator.
[123204]
From the Moscow Virtual Convention “Unity Without Boundaries” Day Two 12/14/13, Lesson 2

Related Material:
Connecting The Entire World To The Creator
Two Conditions That Determine Everything
A Leap Across The Abyss

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam is our guide and this means that I must accept everything that is in his books as the absolute truth. If I can understand what it says in my own mind, then I accept it of course, but even if I don’t understand, I should accept it even without understanding. Otherwise I will not reach the desired goal.

A guide means that he is a couple of steps before me telling me: “Follow me, to the right, to the left, straight ahead!” And I follow him. I don’t see the road, but he sees and is walking ahead of me. When I lift my foot in order to take the next step, I don’t know where to put it, and so I ask him: “Should I put it this way?” And he answers: “This way! Now a bit more to the left; not that way, a bit more to the left.” And I follow his instructions. This is following the guide.

It is also the same in our world. If I go mountain climbing or to some other dangerous place where I do not know the road, I put my life in the hands of the guide. It isn’t a tour guide in London; it is called a source, a guide.

The guide of the Bnei Baruch group is Baal HaSulam. If you want to study with us, you should know that we study according to our source. If not, then you should look for somewhere else to study. This is what Rabash told me when I asked him how I could be sure I was in the right place. I was thirty years old, full of energy, I had everything: health, family, money, everything one needs in life. I also asked him the same question: “I am following you and I have to dedicate 20 years before I reach anything, if I find out that this path is wrong, I will discover it when I am 50 and it would already be too late to correct anything in the few years that I would have left. How can I now be sure that I am in the right place?” And he answered: “Go and look for the right place.”

I was disappointed with the answer. I thought that if he were a spiritual guide, he should advise me to make the right choice. But this was his advice: “You should look for yourself, I cannot tell you.” If you choose a certain place, you should accept the teacher and follow him blindly. He becomes your head.

So if anyone doubts me, you should check me with regard to Baal HaSulam. I will be only too happy since I see my mission as presenting him to the public. This is how a person should check if this path is right for him or not; it is a waste of time to study if one doesn’t accept this method.

But if a person has already decided to study in one of our groups, he cannot accept only part of what we study and reject other parts. It turns out that with this he makes a decision based on his ego, thinking that it is more important than the path that we follow and study. I respect his opinion, but it is impossible to advance if one doesn’t accept this method above reason. Sometimes when you reject it but still accept the mind of the upper, you can advance, but if you don’t agree with the teacher about corporeal actions since you judge by your corporeal mind, on the corporeal level, then it cannot be. It is clear how you should perform them and you need to perform them in faith above reason.

Where faith is involve, the influence of the group is necessary. It is very simple: You either agree and accept things or you don’t belong and don’t advance along our path by even one step. A person has to calculate things, and if he disagrees with the teacher when it comes to corporeal matters, then he will certainly disagree when it comes to spiritual issues. He is only deluding himself that in spirituality everything is fine, but his work will lead to nothing. This is the reason that only very few people reach the goal.
[123154]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Working Without Any Compromises
There Is No Adhesion With The Creator Without Respect For The Teacher And The Group
To Live And Not Merely Exist

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Teacher, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, Letter 26: That power, to heed the word of the sages in this reality, in Dalet, is called “faith.”

If you want the upper to take care of your spiritual development, you have to be like a baby and place yourself in the hands of the group and teacher so that they can take care of you.

But if you don’t annul yourself before them, you will not be able to go on to the next level. Only then can they clean you like it says: “the mother shall come and clean her son.” It cannot be any other way. This is exactly what we do in this world when parents take care of a baby and he naturally annuls himself before us. In the spiritual world, however, you have to place yourself by yourself in the hands of the greater so that he can take care of you.

There is no other way. Who else can take care of you? What would happen if a baby was a big strong dimwit and not small and helpless, it would be impossible to take care of him. It would simply be scary to come near such a monster with such a big ego.

A baby has to be fed from a bottle, he has to be cleaned, diapered, and given everything that a baby needs, but in the spiritual sense, of course. He should also be put to bed and then awakened. He should be taught and brought up! After taking care of everything that he needs on the corporeal level, you should begin to teach him; when his body has received everything that it needs, you should gradually give him the inner filling so that he will gradually learn to annul himself.

You don’t start off your spiritual path from the level of a baby and not even from the level of an embryo. You have not clarified and differentiated your drop of spiritual semen yet. You still have to imagine the Reshimot (spiritual genes) that you have to fulfill: to use all your physical powers, your mind, and all the means that you have in this world in order to develop from the present that you were given, from this drop of spiritual semen.
[123148]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Transmitting Spirituality From One Person To Another
There Is No Adhesion With The Creator Without Respect For The Teacher And The Group
Working Without Any Compromises

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Teacher, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: I feel that I am overwhelmed by internal sensations that are incomprehensible to me: great enthusiasm from which I could explode. What must I do with this, set up some kind of a barrier and say to myself that I don’t want this?

Answer: I think that this is only the beginning stage of your familiarity with the wisdom of Kabbalah, with the group, with those forces that act in this society. As a rule, a state like this typifies new students. They are found in some kind of overexcitement, overdrive, in a unique kind of transitional phase.

In general, when we connect a device to an electrical or electronic network a first surge passes through it, so at first sudden transient processes happen and after that everything calms down and enters into a normal state. I think that it could be that you are still in a state like this, and so it’s necessary to wait until this passes. If the study influences you in this way, then as a rule, in this state it’s very important to talk with the friends more, to try to balance emotion with action.

I would advise you to dedicate more time to studying “The Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” or The Study of the Ten Sefirot, where dry, scientific Kabbalistic language explains what happens with the desires, with their shattering into five stages, into five worlds; in other words, go into the science more. It really relaxes a person because it has a very deep and positive influence not on the emotions but on the mind. Try to balance the heart and the intellect.

You will find some friends with whom you can learn the wisdom of Kabbalah together, and not be involved in all kinds of psychological activities within the group. They are compulsory, but it’s necessary to balance them. I know this from my great experience and from learning with Rabash.

When I brought 40 students to him and we began to work with them, there were also similar abnormalities among them. Part of them were involved only with “dry” learning, others felt an emotional overload like this` such that they could not do anything with themselves. There was a problem with these and with those. In cases like these, Rabash always gave an order: add one thing, subtract a second thing, and so forth, like a good cook who knows precisely how many grams of spices or other additives are necessary to provide the dish with the final taste. If you will learn in a group with friends and balance your emotions through serious study, you will see what a leap you will make.
[123128]
From the Moscow Virtual Convention “Unity Without Boundaries” Day One 12.13.13, Lesson 1

Related Material:
Calculation In The Corrected Heart
Same Words, But Without Shells
A Spiritual Feeling

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Kabbalah Study, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

We have to identify every kind of relationship and work in the group, which when arranged correctly can help us overcome time and space and different external and internal influences. Thus we can overcome the different influences of the Light that Reforms that alternately put us through different states.

We will be able to overcome all this by the help of the environment when its influence is stronger than the influence of the Surrounding Light. Then it can be said: “My sons have defeated Me!” Thus we will ascend above each and every state.

This is actually the main thing we can do and we will learn how to make use of each state in the most beneficial way, which means to “cherish a light Mitzva just like a severe one.” We will always be able to correct ourselves which means to “perform Mitzvot.” We will not be totally dependent on the Light anymore, on its illumination, which brings us different feelings. In fact we are already able to draw the Light that Reforms by our efforts and by the correct connection between us, which means that its influence will help us advance in a more effective way towards the goal.

It doesn’t mean that we want to escape the feeling of the Light and the darkness, the hardening of the heart, no! We understand that it is impossible without it. But if we connect, then we can share all these effects so that we will not feel any obstacles as we advance. All the problems will be solved by the connection between us, since by that we immediately control the Light.

So if our connection is good and correct, we already determine the pace of the ascents and descents that come from the Light; we steadily accelerate our advancement and can determine the pace of the time and the states we go through by ourselves. This will make the ascent permanent and turn it into a day that is totally Light.

The states don’t change and actually remain the same. But when we overcome them we build new levels. Now, too, we are in a state of the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun), and it does not depend on time but on the state, on our feelings. We choose which level of the spiritual ladder to be on. We shouldn’t wait and hope that it will come by itself. Nothing will happen by itself. We have to make it happen. Each of us receives such an invitation to reach the final end of correction from every state we are in.
[122284]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/4/13

Related Material:
Let’s Determine Our Fate By Ourselves
A Race On The Track Of The Light
Ascending Thanks To Our Humility

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: How is it possible that sages argue and cannot come to an agreement with each other?

Answer: If I don’t agree with someone it means that we have not reached unity. It’s not our brain that is the “guilty” party here. Our intellect only helps to clarify the degree of the detachment of our desires.

Naturally, we are always separated from each other and disconnected in our desires. There is a gap between us that doesn’t let us get closer. I don’t ask others to share my opinion! It’s better if we stick to our views and yet try to unite in order to please the Creator.

Everybody should retain their properties and opinions. However, we should rise above the desires and views that we have and connect above them; in other words, the Creator is the one who reconciles us. It doesn’t happen in this world, and we are unable to understand how it works. That’s why we think that arguments and fights among sages are really strange, particularly and especially the animosity that they feel towards each other.

Real hostility emerges because we come to the conclusion that we don’t have too much in common. We reveal the evil force that is called “Klipat Eimori” and see that it doesn’t belong to the land of Israel. Then, we break the Klipa and enter the Holy Land. By all means each of us still preserves their opinions and views. However, since we share a common goal, we stop arguing with each other.

We will always encounter problems since every soul is different. Even if the dissimilarity among us “weighs” only one gram or if we differ only in one property, we still will be opposite to others. Our work will also be different. That’s why we are opposite to and completely detached from each other. On our rise to the world of Infinity, there are no identical souls. We attain a huge common desire in which none of us is similar to others. Rather, all of us are overwhelmed with a terrible animosity that is caused by our complete dissimilarity.

At such a high level, we can connect with each other only through the Creator, not through the qualities that we share with others. The higher we rise, the clearer the understanding that we don’t have any connection with others becomes. It’s similar to the arguments that happen among great sages. The greater they are, the more furious their disputes and the more dissimilarity they sense. Common people are puzzled and do not understand why they argue about complete nonsense. However, for sages these issues are not trivial at all. These trivialities are in fact their entire reality, their whole world. It explains why they are unable to reach the agreement with each other.

Each of them acts in their own lines, which never cross. Connection among them is possible only through the Creator. The more advanced they are, the more rigid this requirement. When they reach the very last step it becomes possible for them to connect only through Him, so that “the One Who makes peace in Heaven establishes peace among us.”
[122083]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/13, The Zohar

Related Material:
These Beautiful Contradictions
Seven Billion Included Universes
Equality For The Final Goal

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Filed under: Group Work, Inner Work, Laitman Unplugged, Spirituality - No Comments →

The world will come to its prearranged final good state anyway, but according to the nature’s program of management it is possible to come to this state not forced by suffering but by motivating ourselves independently, consciously. However, in this case, we must precede our nature, egoism, intention for oneself in all our actions, and act against egoism, towards the intention to aim for the benefit of others, bestowal in all our actions.

This is impossible because our nature is only egoism, the desire to act only for oneself in everything. But we were given this world to correct our nature, and even being in this world we can act, deceiving our egoism.

We can give to friends, although our intention will be to bestow for the sake of ourselves. We can unite with them, although our intention, our goal, would be to benefit only ourselves. But if we act like this while studying the state of “bestowal, love, for the benefit of others,” which is described in Kabbalistic sources, then we attract and awaken in ourselves the property of bestowal and love, which is called the Upper Light.

Therefore, we need friends aspiring to the same goal and we have to appreciate them to the extent of how much this goal is important for us because we cannot achieve it without them. Thus, our main task is to form such an environment that will pull us to good aspirations, instead of pushing us from behind by suffering, painfully, unconsciously, as is happening to the whole of humanity as it moves toward the same goal.
[123035]

Related Material:
Cleaning The Pipes For The Surrounding Light
It Won’t Help Us To Play Love
The Human Being Is Intention

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →