Question: What actions can we perform in order to the draw the Light that Reforms more strongly?

Answer: The Surrounding Light is the revelations of the Inner Light, in ten Sefirot that complement one another. This means that every Sefira is incorporated in all the ten. Therefore there should be ten friends who connect. Thus everyone includes all the others inside him. Ten friends live inside me. Now they are all together. 10 x 10 make up a whole vessel.

Then in their connection “above reason,” above their ego, the Inner Light is revealed. The Aviut (thickness) remains below, the Returning Light (Ohr Hozer) above and in this Returning Light there is a revelation of a new degree, Direct Light (Ohr Yashar).

We have not attained such a state yet and are at the lowest point. Our job is to organize and arrange the right connections between us so that the Inner Light is revealed in us as Surrounding Light. The Surrounding Light includes the Light of Hochma that is dressed in the Light of Hassadim since it is the same Light that shines in our upper Partzuf, which we will arrive at soon.

We have to try to reach the same corrected form in which everyone is incorporated in everyone. This is called yearning for the love of the created beings. Such a connection, mutual incorporation of one desire in the other, a desire to fill all the strange deficiencies, is called love of others, love of the created beings. This is what we should yearn for, since by that we attain the love of the Creator. When the Direct Light shines and is revealed in the Returning Light, it gives us a feeling that we have attained connection, unity, and adhesion with the upper force of bestowal, which is called the “Creator.”
[111294]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/13, Writings of Rabash

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In spiritual work nothing goes smoothly. If you advance seriously then the ego will grow and will show you your true nature all the time. So how can you feel good along with this? Therefore the importance of the society and support from the collective are compulsory; they always go back and say: “This is magnificent that we feel ourselves in a form like this and that our terrible nature is revealed to us!”

And this is not an erosion of the self, it is because you are working on yourselves and therefore it is revealed to you that you can do this, you can ascend. On the contrary, you need to be happy about this.

Question: How long will there be evil?

Answer: Until this “evil” seems good to you.

It is bad for you now because your ego is very close to you, you love it, and when it feels a deficiency in itself, then this is bad to you. But when you are detached from it, the feeling of deficiency in it will seem like something good to you since you are passing from the characteristic of evil to the characteristic of bestowal and adhering to it, then you will be happy.

So the feeling of emptiness within the ego will become greater and greater. And all the time you will feel: “Oh, even worse!” as long as you don’t push yourself away from it again in the direction of bestowal. And that is how we swing like a pendulum, left, right, left, right.

Now it is bad for you because you identify yourself with your ego. So look at it from the side. So it will suffer; but you, your “I,” is not found in it.

You need to enjoy and be happy because spiritual happiness appears when emptiness and troubles are discovered within the ego. Otherwise you would not detach from it! If they were to give you some kind of pleasure within the ego, you would simply adhere to it.

For what are they giving you all these negative feelings? This is only to help you become detached from it. Draw the right psychological conclusions from this: Life hits us from all directions like pesky little animals so that we will gradually begin to understand that we must leave our egoistic nature.
[111279]
From the Convention in Krasnoyarsk 6/13/13, Lesson 3

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Question: Do we draw the Surrounding Light by participating in a certain dissemination activity?

Answer: By participating and engaging in dissemination we expand our vessels and by that the vessels of the whole group. Thus you ease the ascent of the group by expanding its infrastructure. All the people who received information from you join us as the still, vegetative, and animate levels of the same pyramid in which we are at the human level.

Thus you lower the tension in the group and change our efforts from quality to quantity. We lose in the distance but gain in power. It’s as if we use a pulley to lift a heavy load, and by turning it, by many motions, we can gradually lift a very heavy load. Thus we increase the distance but reduce the power that we have to invest.

It’s the same when we disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah or Integral Education: We lose with regard to the length of the path by putting forth small efforts, but we gain in power, as if we acquire the power to lift a ton with our hands. It’s the same principle of gears in a bicycle that enables us to climb a hill.

So the more groups there are that join us before the convention, the more we will all gain. It will be easier for us to attain the desired state.
[111291]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Our virtual women’s group of ten gathers after every lecture. We share our impressions, read Shamati together and there is a feeling that we recharge one another. Is there anything spiritual in that or are women exempt from doing that?

Answer: First of all women need everything that men need. Second, a person is where his thoughts are, so you are doing a great job. Connect and think that it’s very important.

If you are not connected you will not be able to impress the men. Each woman is powerless by herself. Only if you are connected, at least in a group of ten, will you be able to impress the men. They will begin to subconsciously feel that you are pressuring them, that you demand of them just like a woman demands of her husband.

This is how we are made! And it’s very important! So encouraging and demanding at the same time is a woman’s work along two lines. We have to use that. Men who don’t perceive that will deprive themselves of the strongest means to advance! They mustn’t refuse that. Otherwise they will have no incentive.

It’s the female nature that can obligate a man to act. Even psychologists and historians speak about the fact that a man can do anything for a woman. Such mutual cooperation is part of our nature.

So you have to act together and to impress the men’s group together and actually demand that they pay attention to you and take your yearning seriously. It is serious work. I see that wherever there is a strong women’s group, the men are also successful.
[111274]
From the Convention in Krasnoyarsk 6/13/13, Lesson 3

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Question: A person who is studying Kabbalah, with time begins to feel heaviness, in particular when he watches the morning lessons or reads something serious. The Creator gives us “intentional obstacles” like these, which we call disturbances. Why? What do they mean?

Answer: Apparently it’s so that life will not seem sweet like honey, even though this never really seems to be so. We say this all the time, that all of our ascents take place only above the growth of the ego. There is nothing else! You do something good, this is a sign that you can increase your ego, and so the system immediately adds this. You attract the upper Light onto yourself through your unity, through further yearning for the goal, and immediately the ego is added from the left again, and so forth.

You call the constant burdening of the ego “intentional obstacles.” And the person really feels: “What is this dirty trick?!”

I remember how I came to Rabash about this for the first time: “Look at what is happening to me! You see it’s impossible to endure this…” I worked as usual all the time, I did everything, and suddenly there was a descent for a few weeks. I really couldn’t see the light of day.

What do I want to say about this? The growth of the ego is compulsory. Imagine that you now have five grams of ego; in regard to spirituality it is not considered to exist. But in order to leave it, to hate it, to strangle it, you would need a few hundred kilograms. How can you attain such a state of hatred so you will be ready to flee from it, when “my death would be better than my life”? When you begin to feel like this, only then will you be able to carry out a transition to this phase.

This is really an internal revolution within you when you are ready to die just so you won’t remain with it: “Take everything that you gave me, I don’t need anything, just get me out of this ego!” Moreover, this is not incidental, rather it’s truly a serious decision.

How is it possible to reach this? In this way they bring you to it gradually. But you can hasten your advancement only on condition that the group helps you, and you will search constantly for a state contrary to the ego, meaning connection, bestowal, and love.
[111198]
From the Convention in Krasnoyarsk 6/13/13, Lesson 3

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We need to imagine the future that is our next degree, which relative to us is perfect bestowal that we can only think of—that is not half, not a quarter, but complete bestowal—the only way the lower degree imagines the higher one, as the standard of its final corrected state. After all, In order to rise to the next degree, it really needs to reach its end of correction.

All the qualities, all the obstacles and disappointments that exist in a person need to be corrected and completed to perfection. Nothing disappears without a trace, but everything is corrected, adding to the form of complete bestowal that a person can only imagine. He must see that the whole world, all the people, are in bestowal and he is included and absorbed there, dissolves in there.

This is his next degree, and having ascended to it, he discovers an additional desire and depth there, a whole new range of work. He will need to apply efforts again to reveal all the desires of this degree, the depth of its vessels and properties, and strive again to correct this degree fully. When he reaches this, it will be the completion of the ten Sefirot of the next degree. Thus, he will rise from state to state, from degree to degree.
[111163]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can we acquire additional deficiencies that we need in our preparation for the convention?

Answer: We shouldn’t ask for deficiencies but for their correction and for the completion of those that we already have. You are asking how you should prepare and enlarge your vessel, but what we have is enough and we don’t need additional deficiencies. We only need to connect what we have now in one integral manner.

We don’t need anything else but that, and this is the only thing we should think about. Then different thoughts, disappointments, confusions, rejections, and other interruptions will come along that will help us grow stronger and complete the general connection into one whole on the first level.

We only have to connect, to unite Israel, the Torah, and the Creator; that’s all. The deficiencies that we already have are enough and we don’t need any more. We don’t need to look for new troubles and confusions or unpleasantness, leave this work for the Light. Our work is to yearn to unite everything into one concept.

Then we will suddenly encounter new interruptions, which is a sign what they were missing in order to complete the Aviut (thickness) for the first level. Then we will work with them too as we acknowledge and are grateful for the help we have received. This is called “being grateful for the evil as well as for the good,” to thank and to bless both the Light and the new deficiencies.

Question: How should we prepare for that?

Answer: I want everything in me to unite in one direction, I prepare myself for that and don’t sit and wait for the beginning of the convention. The right preparation wants it to happen now and not leave it for tomorrow. I expect the Messiah to come at any moment and bring us to the end of correction. This is called preparation.
[111233]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/13, Writings of Rabash

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Israel is a point in the heart that yearns to know what the taste of life is, to discover the secret of life, the source of life. It determines a person’s inner connection with the upper force. A person cannot imagine this connection, but it already exists. Because of it, he is called Israel, Yashar-El (straight to the Creator), since he has this inclination towards the Creator. But this force doesn’t belong to him; rather, it stems from the point in the heart, which is the Godly part from Above that is in him. He has nothing of the upper other than that and will never have anything but what he develops of this point.

As we ascend the 125 levels, we discover our 613 vessels. This is on a person’s part. On the Creator’s part, we are given the point in the heart and the Light that Reforms. We can use these two means in order to correct our shattered vessels.

It turns out that I have an inclination towards spirituality and I have 613 egoistic desires. There is also the Light that Reforms if I want to draw it. So what do I lack? I lack a group towards which I fulfill my 613 desires. This is why I am brought to the group.

So I have a point in the heart, 613 shattered desires, a group, and the Light that Reforms, everything that I need. Now I only have to connect them correctly. If I integrate all these components correctly, the Light operates and influences my 613 desires; my point in the heart is strengthened by them and then the Light can be revealed in these 613 desires, which is called the revelation of the Creator to the created being.

Thus we end one state and everything happens over again from the beginning. The point in the heart is also renewed since it has become stronger by the corrected 613 desires on the previous level. It begins to illuminate and to burn more strongly since against it are the 613 new egoistic desires that are crueler than the previous ones. In contrast to them, there is a stronger Light that Reforms if I want to use it. I also have a group in contrast to them, which according to the new ego is depicted to me as much worse than it was before. So once more I work in order to connect all these components correctly. On the whole this is all I have to do: establish the right relations between these four components.
[111214]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can we picture the next state in the group so that we can get closer to it?

Answer: The next state is wholeness. Picture it as you can. Each one has his one idea of the spiritual level and pictures it differently.

You may think that when you attain the spiritual level you will sit like a king on a throne and have all the angels serve you: One will bring you a cigarette, another will light it, a third one will bring you a glass of beer, and they will fix the pillows you sit on. I do hope you don’t imagine the upper world this way.

It is important that you have the right idea of the upper world by constantly holding on to the right intention since without it you are like a sail boat in a stormy sea that is thrown from side to side by rough waves. It isn’t that you just lose the way, but you are actually in a dangerous situation.

You must constantly see the goal before you. If you see it, then you immediately identify different interruptions that come along in contrast to it. Then you have the time to catch them and to overcome them, thus using them to support you.

But if you don’t see the goal, you lose direction and there is nothing you can examine and compare the interruptions to. Therefore, you don’t understand that these interruptions draw you away from the goal: different desires, thoughts, and pictures in which you disappear. They swallow you instead of you swallowing them.

It is very important to picture a clear goal before us, and this is why the preparation is so important. The preparation is picturing the corrected state that we want to attain, only that and nothing less, and without any doubts! Otherwise, I would rather die if I don’t attain what I want!
[111208]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Before we attain love is it necessary to attain hatred regarding a friend? What is this hatred in spirituality?

Answer: We never yearn to discover hatred. In no way or manner! Not in a family, not at home, not with the children, not with anyone!

We don’t need to yearn for anything bad! Only through yearning for good can we understand our true nature. By trying to love a friend, we begin to discover that we hate him. Therefore on the path to “And you shall love your friend as yourself,” we discover big problems. And all the time by overcoming them, we fall into hatred again.

If you want to know your nature, you need to direct yourselves only towards love, which is to say, to be incorporated maximally with the other: “What do you want? What are you missing in order to attain the goal?” You try to push him towards this goal, even though you yearn for it yourself. It is not according to your egoistic calculations; rather, it is specifically because he wants this.

By trying to do everything for the sake of a friend artificially, you begin to discover that you hate him: “Why do I need to help him? How can I wish that he achieve this? Where am I in all this?” The hatred appears here very quickly and we need to work on it.

But this first discovery of true hatred beyond the efforts that we made in approaching each other, this is already spiritual hatred. This is not as it is in our world. In our world we don’t take positive or negative emotions into account.

Everything that is in our world comes to a person through his ego, so we don’t take this into account in the spiritual world. And working on approaching the friends in a group, to the degree of our effort to approach them, to fulfill them, and to elevate them, we begin to see how much we are completely the opposite of this; this is our work. And hatred will appear there and this will already be spiritual. All spirituality is attained only beyond yearning for unity—solely and only—both positively and negatively.
[111203]
From the Preparation for the Convention in Krasnoyarsk 6/13/13

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