Question: Why does it say that the picture of this world is fictitious and not real?

Answer: The picture of the world that appears before us is fictitious and not real because the Creator is always good and benevolent to us. Eventually, the created being will reveal the Creator’s love in everything. But in the meantime, having no choice, He must hasten us to develop and even threaten, pressure, and confuse us.

We do the same thing with children since otherwise, they will not develop. This is why the Creator treats us in the same way. The problem is that we don’t see who is taking care of us and we don’t know the plan of creation.

A baby also doesn’t understand what is going on, either. He doesn’t realize that his parents are giving him exercises; for him, it is simply a game. It is only when his mother or father begin to pressure him does he pay attention to them and begin to shout that Mommy is bad!

I never have heard a child shouting that Mom is good. He takes this for granted since it is obvious that she must serve him. But when she suddenly does something against his will, he resents it.

So, we must understand that the only way to advance is by exercises that are not very pleasant and will only get more complicated. Everything depends on our preparation and on our ability to recognize them. In fact, we are given a certain exercise every moment, and we can be constantly in the process of clarification. However, a person doesn’t make the right effort, and so the Creator’s stimuli accumulate and are felt eventually as a hard blow.

It is as if you have complaints about someone, but restrain yourself and suffer. You accumulate anger and frustration inside of you, instead of easily and immediately clarifying things the moment they come up. Eventually, however, you lose patience and explode, and this happens suddenly and unexpectedly and those around you don’t understand what is going on.

So, it is better not to come to such an outburst, but to be aware of what is going on all the time. This is possible only through mutual guarantee when everyone thinks about this and deals with it, when everyone wants to support one another. In fact, we are building the one, general vessel of the soul. A person has nothing that is private in spirituality.

The solution is only in connection, and it has to do with what I think about the friends and about the connection between us. This is the only thing we have to correct since this is how our soul is built.
[104963]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Writings of Rabash, Volume 2, “What is the Prohibition to Greet Another Before Greeting the Creator, in the Work”: The most difficult part in the work is the order of the work that consists of two things that contradict one another, and it is hard to understand how they can both be true, when we attribute the work to the Creator, believing that the Creator accepts our work no matter how we see it.

This means that it doesn’t matter whether a person works for the greatness of reason and understanding, whether a person attributes the work to the Creator, which means that he works with the intention of in order to bestow; the Creator accepts his work willingly. This means that a person has to follow the right line that is considered wholeness, to pray to the Creator, and to thank Him, even if he doesn’t find any desire for spirituality in him. Otherwise, how can he thank the Creator and say that the Creator hears what he says to Him?

If he can thank the Creator, he feels joy and from “Lo Lishma (not for Her sake) he arrives at Lishma (for Her sake),” and thus he rises from his state of wholeness. Since the gratitude that he feels towards the Creator makes a person feel that he is whole, and to the extent  the joy he feels he continues, he is able to rise to the next level.

The state itself doesn’t change, it is constant. Only a person’s attitude towards it changes, his perception of it, and it happens to the extent that he clarifies and correctly interprets this state, his reaction to the constant state in which he exists all the time.

New Reshimot (spiritual records) are revealed in him each time, and he judges the upper Light, the level of bestowal that is revealed to him. So he is constantly going through inner changes, which means that his evaluation of the attributes such as bestowal, connection, and love, all the attributes that belong to spirituality, to the idea of the Creator, change as well.

This is revealed in a person’s shattered or partly corrected desires (vessels),and hence all the changes take place only internally. Therefore, everything depends on how he corrects his vessels and brings them closer to the Light. Everything depends on the equivalence of form, to the extent that the Reshimot that are constantly revealed match the Light. The only way to make them equivalent to the Light is by the environment that serves as an adapter between the Reshimot that are revealed and the Light.

If a person uses the environment and his Reshimot correctly, he can reach adhesion with the Light very quickly in every state. Then he can feel that his state is good. Of course, he does that not in order to feel good, but in order to resemble the Light and to detach himself from the egoistic accounts, to truly become the one who bestows. Here one ascends the levels of consciousness, of understanding, and of the appreciation of the Light.

We must tie these two sensations together, the two factors that contradict each other, the contradiction that we discover, and it’s only possible when a person transcends himself. On one hand, everything is “against” bestowal, and on the other, everything is “for” it, and a person doesn’t know what to do. This is the world; this is the way a person is internally, so how can we tie these two opposites? It’s impossible unless the third factor comes and decides between them. This requires studying and lots of experience so that a person will understand that this is the only way to advance.

On one hand, he feels absolute helplessness, tension and doesn’t understand how he can come out of this state and be saved from the threat of Pharaoh.”On the other, he understands that there is no room for such states in love and bestowal, where everything has to be nice, good, and perfect!

The world is divided into two armies: The forces of evil, conflict, hate, and separation are confronting the positive, good forces of connection and love, and there is nothing in between. All this is so that the third Participant will come and decide between them. Only the Creator can make peace between the two hostile parties, which is called “My sons have defeated me.” It says: “He who makes peace in Heaven will bring peace unto us.” This is already work in three lines.
[105552]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/13

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Question: How can the group practically bestow upon every member so that he will be able to accept every state as the good and benevolent?

Answer: It is possible only if the group thinks about everyone unequivocally, and there is no separation in any way. We have to be very careful of that and aspire for an equal attitude towards everyone.

I am not talking about a division according to professional occupations, or about some work meetings since this has nothing to do with the group work. But there has to be total equality as to what belongs to the group. It is a very important condition: Advancing towards equality is advancing upwards.

Suppose, you want to organize an event that will help you connect, and you invite 15 people. Of course you choose them according to your ego. Why don’t you invite other people? Because you value them less and feel that they are more distant from you. So, it turns out that instead of connection you bring about separation.

There are people in the group who are quiet and not dominant, and so we tend to forget them since our ego doesn’t recognize them. If you organize a special meeting especially for your work group that assembles according to their occupation, then it is normal. But if you just choose people you want to be together with, then you should be very careful so as not to harm the connection. Be careful of that since your future depends on that.
[105441]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/13, Writing of Rabash 

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Question: How should we look at personal problems through the group?

Answer: I have never come across any problem that doesn’t concern anyone but only the person himself. Try to give me such an example. You have a backache, for example. How can it relate only to you if you are a member in the group and now, because your back aches, you lie in bed instead of participating in some activity with us: the studies or the intention?

You have made us weaker, and we are all affected by your illness. What should we do if we are all in a boat and your job is to turn a certain handle, but you don’t do that? Everyone else is in their place, and there is no one to replace you. Without your participation, the boat will not be able to float properly.

Where have you seen any personal problems in an integral system in which everyone is totally connected to one another? It would be very interesting if you could give me such an example. It would mean that the Creator not only created the general soul, but something else in addition to it.

Even if you came in sick, but overcame your backache and turned the handle, but you didn’t feel that the Creator is good and benevolent, it also means that you are not with us, albeit in a different way. You cannot participate in our revelation of the Creator as the good and benevolent. So, what should we do with you?

From this it follows that there simply cannot be any personal problems in the integral system. Nothing is private! Every individual influences everyone and judges himself and the entire world to the scale of merit,

If someone’s back aches, it is exactly as if your own back aches. After all, you have to love your friend as yourself. In the integral system, it makes no difference where the ache or the flaw is—they belong to the whole system. It doesn’t matter where the illness is at all since because of that illness, the system cannot be perfect anymore. It makes no difference which screw is responsible for the general malfunction; the whole system doesn’t function properly now.
[104960]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 44: When he begins to delve in Torah and commandments, even without any intention, meaning without any love and fear, as is fitting when serving the king, even in Lo Lishma, the point in one’s heart begins to grow and disclose its action.

When the point in the heart awakens in a person, he comes to an environment in which he is provided with all the conditions for his inner spiritual development. It is said that “the Creator puts a person’s hand on the good fate and tells him: Choose it.” This is exactly where his free will is: to advance to the center of the group and through the group to the Creator.

Then a person begins to understand the system, the “kitchen” where everything is “cooking.” From that point on, if he looks for how to focus correctly on the goal by using the influence of the environment, subduing himself to the environment, and yearning for the Creator through it, then his point in the heart expands and grows.

Here his basic participation with the intention that is not yet aimed at pure bestowal is enough. Even if a person doesn’t feel sorry about that yet and can’t think about that seriously, it’s still a start. If he already has a “point in the heart” and, most importantly, is already incorporated in the right environment that influences him, that’s development.

Even acts without an aim can purify one’s will to receive, but only in the first degree called “still.”

A person doesn’t have the right intentions yet and he can’t see himself as one who bestows yet, but he can at least choose to “lower his head” with all his might, to annul himself, and thus advance. The greatness of the still level is its ability to subdue itself before the group and the study. This level ends when a person totally annuls himself before what has been revealed to him on the current level. This is the climax of the still level.

Afterwards, on the vegetative level everything changes: If before he only had to restrain himself while rising above his ego, now he has to open up as much as he can. Such a change is typical in each transition from one level to another.

Question: So, it turns out that the still level is not as “coarse” as one may think?

Answer: I may not understand or feel anything and may not be able to participate in real bestowal, but I need to acknowledge the lack of feeling, mind, and the right attitude, the lack of anything spiritual. I am 100% outside the dimension of bestowal. So how can I enter it?

To do that, I have to annul everything that awakens within me. I don’t delete and don’t cover up my attributes, but I know that I can’t enter spirituality with them. So, I cling to the dominion of the environment. They tell me to join something, and I do that without understanding what it means. They tell me to read, to study, and so I read and study. They tell me to do something, so I do it. I do it specifically because I am told to do so. In other words, I subdue myself before the group and the study with all my might. I accept this dominion as I relinquish myself thus advancing to the correction of my still level.

After all, my still level can’t move by itself, and so the only way to do that is to have the friends move me from the outside. In order to do that, I have to be in their hands.

In this nobody has any obstacles. Everyone is capable to perform these actions upon himself. A person just annuls himself before others and depends only on this. Self-annulment automatically puts him into their hands. Later he will be asked to perform actions that are based on interdependence and cooperation, but on the still level he only has to renounce himself. The desire grows, the interruptions increase, there is greater confusion along with disagreement, and the answer to all that is self-annulment. One needs to lower his head time and time again and thus advance. This is the first phase on our way.
[105267]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/13, “The Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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With the help of the environment one should try not to forget that we are specifically making inner corrections. Throughout the entire way, a person perceives his own wretchedness more and more. As it is said, “Where you perceive His greatness, there you perceive His humility.” These two polar opposites are connected and depend upon each other: The higher Keter, the lower Malchut is.

Thus with our point we descend to minus Infinity and with the characteristic of bestowal, with the Reflected Light, we reach plus Infinity. All of our work is in this.

Therefore, we require very strong support from the environment; otherwise, the person is not prepared to descend at all, to shame or to lower himself, to trample on his pride. Even if he wanted, he cannot do this since his entire nature opposes this. This is because he doesn’t have both types of nature in him, only one.

Therefore, there is a great need of an environment that will support you in the goal, of learning in your group that will attract the Light to give you the power to endure blows to your ego, pride, and the desire to control and be the master of every state. In this way you will finally reach adherence with the upper one.

There is no going back, only going towards humility and correction of the ego, bringing us to bestowal and holiness. This correction always happens from within, not through external actions or words.

In order to hasten our development, it is important to pay attention to what you associate your ascents and descents. A descent is suffering from your wounded pride, while an ascent is the feeling of adherence with the Creator. These are determined not by your mood or by something else, but exist only in relation to your pride, narcissism, control, the feeling that you act, decide, and understand on your own. It is specifically here that you feel the blows and descents. You feel that you cannot handle your state or control your life.

And you determine your ascent according to how much you are ready to annul yourself and to find new opportunities for self-abnegation. And a real miracle happens here: From Above you are shown how to annul yourself and how by this all problems and difficulties disappear immediately. This is the next stage of the work, which we must learn from experiencing descents and ascents.
[105524]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/13

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Question: Can an evil thought be equated to slander?

Answer: Humanity is like a malignant tumor inside nature’s healthy body. The body consists of the still, vegetative, and animate levels of this world, which are in complete harmony with general nature, and under its control that leaves no room for freedom of choice. That’s why these levels cannot be held liable for anything at all since they fully obey natural instincts.

Egoistic nature acts within human beings and motivates them. This makes us different from other beings since we have a tendency to harm others. There is no other creature in this world (a stone, a plant, or an animal) that harms others except humans. People enjoy when others feel bad. This is what is called the human evil.

We don’t kill each other for the sake of food or to avoid dying of hunger. If that were the case, we wouldn’t touch others after satisfying our appetite, as animals do. Human beings want to “swallow” the entire world even after they receive everything they need, and that’s only because they don’t want others to have it.

A desire to harm our neighbors, take advantage of them, and enjoy somebody else’s troubles is called the evil of egoism, which we have to correct. Because of this quality, we act as a foreign body and “infiltrate” the general picture of all of nature, including the higher worlds.

Being a cancerous tumor that strives to ingest everything around pertains solely to this material world and exquisitely to humans. As a result, humanity kills itself because it destroys the environment that becomes unable to feed it any longer. This is how a cancerous tumor behaves in a human body: It devours everything around it. When there is nothing left, the body dies and the tumor dies together with it. Nowadays, we see that humanity behaves the same way and approaches a lethal finale at a tremendous speed.

In order to cure the disease, we have to understand how to approach this phenomenon. We can perform mechanical and physical actions, or we can act at the level of desires and thoughts. We can perform mechanical actions with our bodies even without the desire or much thought. Corporeal bodies are capable of moving either because of persuasion or under outside pressure.

Besides, we have an ability to correct the connection between us by following our desire, meaning from the heart that embodies our feelings. Moreover, we can add our thought, plan, and intention, that is, our reason.

One has only three opportunities to correct one’s attitude to the environment: an action, a desire, and a thought. Out of these three ways, the most effective and powerful is a thought. Thoughts influence our desires that in their turn impact our bodies.

However, there is a different way to activate ourselves, as it is said: “Hearts (desires) follow the actions.” Desires change thoughts. This flexible remedy can be used in various ways.

Connection among people defines the shape of the universe. Corrupt connection is called slander. It stands for a bad attitude to others and an unwillingness to maintain healthy connections and mutual communication, in similarity to organs of a single body, which help each other and make the body healthy. All parameters, such as blood pressure, temperature, fluids, and so on, everything should be in balance. If some bodily organs do not maintain correct interaction with others, it is immediately seen in medical tests.

Everything is built accordingly: ecology, politics, finances, and human relationships. Divorces, depressions, and drugs are the consequences of the imbalance in the system of our connection. It’s not terrible if one person is spoiled—the major thing is a corrupt connection between us. It is the real reason for all our problems. And an incorrect connection is called slander.
[103168]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How do we build the right intention in us?

Answer: The intention is the result of the work of the person, the result of the Light that influences him, as a reaction to his right efforts to be included into the group, from his intention to acquire an intention for the sake of bestowal. Only the Light can give him this intention, its power.

When the Light illuminates the center of the group, everyone is connected to that center as to a well of living water, and then everyone and all together receive the Light that Reforms. In this way, thanks to the intention, we correct the desire so that it will be under the control of the intention. This is called the people of Israel conquering the land, meaning the power of intention.

This is the work in the group and during the study, where everyone intends to attract the Light that Reforms. This is continuous work to attract the Light to the center of the group, into the connection between us, our readiness to be one. Thanks to the illumination that comes, our vessels of reception are expanded “620” times. This is, by correcting each and every step, every small desire, with the intention in order to bestow, we build an immense desire that contains many distinctions. Every part swells 620 times.

The center of the group is the Shechina, our connection as one person with one heart. This is not our whim, but the condition of the spiritual statute, which demands this kind of connection from us in order to correspond to the Light. So, to the degree of the effort that we invest, the Light will act on us and help us to really connect.

The moment that we reach the first minimal degree of connection, we begin to discover the Light within us. This is called crossing the Machsom (the border to the upper world), birth into the spiritual world, meaning to a state of absolute bestowal to everyone and from all of us to the Creator.

The Light performs corrections, while our task is to exert effort.
[105171]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam: “The Writings of the Last Generation”: It is a fact that Israel are the most hateful of all the nations whether it is for religious reasons, because of race, because of…or because of cosmopolitanism, etc. It is because hate precedes all the reasons, but everyone solves his hate according to his own psychology.

Once the nation of Israel was as one man with one heart, and hence although it’s dispersed all over the world today, the nations of the world treat us as one whole. In the world, this attitude is originally rooted between the desire to receive and the intention for the sake of bestowal, and we have to correct it only on the spiritual degrees.

There cannot be any correction in our world. Although there are attempts to “mediate” between us and our Palestinians neighbors, Turkey or others, there is no way these problems can be solved on the level of our world. It’s because our situation here is only the result of an action that stems from Above.

This is one of the fundamental laws. There is only a motionless desire to receive in this world. The only thing that can move it is the Light, the force of life.

When the Light comes in its time, it brings about trouble and evil (1). Why? It’s because it is then revealed through its posterior. But if the Light comes as a result of our request for correction (MAN), it’s revealed as the good and benevolent Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif, OM).

Thus the only difference is to what extent we can advance towards the goal faster than the forces that come from Above. Our free will is between these two options.

So there are simply no efficient means on the level of this world. Talks on all levels, politics, the UN, and so on are all useless. In fact, it’s all the outcome of the action of the upper Light that influences different factors in our world according to the first option.

No matter how many decisions are made in summit meetings and conventions, the Light actually determines everything. Essentially, the politicians are puppets, and the only thing that is really effective is our request for correction, which we raise before the negative force comes. Only then will the negative force be changed to the positive one—after all, we want to be corrected without waiting for trouble.

So how do we reach this request? We do so with the help of the group and the study (a prayer). The group connects us into one body, one vessel, and by praying during the lesson we connect to the one source of the Light, to the Creator.

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Question: What can you say about the Independence Day that the nation of Israel is celebrating?

Answer: If we are speaking about Israel, we are not independent. On the contrary, we absolutely depend on our neighbors, on America, and on the entire world. In general, today, no nation is independent. On the contrary, we see how much they all depend upon each other.

So, what is true independence? It means that we have attained a good unification between us. The better this unification, the more independent each will feel within it. If one has good relationships with others, they don’t oblige him to do something that he doesn’t want to do, and he also behaves in this way with them. Therefore, logically, everyone is independent and yet interconnected.

Today we are already unable to cut off ties between us. The world has become like a closed system, all its parts are connected, and it’s impossible to sever this connection even with the help of world wars. Mutual dependence will remain and only grow.

So what are we going to do? The answer is the same: Only a good connection between us will give us all a feeling of independence, even though all of us absolutely depend upon each other like cells or organs in one body. It is possible to feel independent only when there is a mutual balance, when we understand that belonging to the system is a constant search for harmony and complementarity between us.

A healthy person doesn’t feel his body. A healthy body makes it possible for us to act at full force, without any limits. In a good connection, too, we will free ourselves of any limitations and find our independence. This is the only possibility, there simply is no other.

If some nation supposes that by rising above others it will become more independent, the opposite is true: It becomes more dependent on all. The best example is the United States, which is immersed in various conflicts and confrontations, and is unable to get out of a tangle of problems. This “concern about the world” costs the United States many billions, and they cannot rid themselves of this until they understand that it is necessary to correct relationships with everybody. This is exactly what the United State, as a great power, should take care of. Namely Americans have to introduce integral education to the world. Otherwise, they can expect trouble from the entire world.

In fact, the entire world is one family, and in every good family, there is a head that is concerned about everyone and takes care of them. This is a simple rule.

Baal HaSulam writes in the essay, “Peace in the World”:

“Do not be surprised if I mix together the well-being of a particular collective with the well-being of the whole world because indeed, we have already come to such a degree that the whole world is considered one collective and one society. Meaning, because each person in the world draws his life’s marrow and his livelihood from all the people in the world, he is coerced to serve and care for the well-being of the whole world. …

We should not discuss further something that is known to all, and the aforesaid is only to show the drawback, the place that needs correction, and that is that each and every individual will understand that his own benefit and the benefit of the collective are one and same thing. In that, the world will come to its full correction.”
[105156]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/13, “The Israeli Nation”

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