Question: How do you help a friend for whom dissemination has become more important than work in the group and this state has a negative impact on the group?

Answer: First of all he needs to understand that his connection with his friends is what leads him into the upper world. If he cannot be tied to them, then he is simply avoiding the spiritual work of spiritual connection.

I understand that you always want to get away from it and just disseminate because there you feel like you are big and great, etc. But you cannot escape the connection in the group and you need to try with all your might to be with your friends, even if they really seem to be the wrong kind of friends!

The thing is that you see them to the degree of your uncorrected state, so quit justifying both yourself and them, and don’t do anything; just work for the connection. Don’t pay attention to their faults, as if this were one sided, as if you don’t see them; you need to work for the connection!
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From the Virtual Lesson 2/3/13

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Question: Is enjoying dissemination a good or bad thing?

Answer: It is good. The other way around is worse. A person must enjoy his spiritual work even when he has to pressure himself and force himself to participate. This is not masochism; it is simply an understanding that things cannot be any other way because I am working against my egoism.

Question: Does this mean that you can do whatever gives you more pleasure: study if you want to study, disseminate if you want to disseminate?

Answer: First you need to find the part of the common work in the group where you can be useful.

There are people who cannot study at all. They spend their time with the group, they help out, they do things, and gradually they begin to hear and participate in seminars. They absorb the material during the work and not during the study.

And there are people who do not like group work, they prefer to study and disseminate. Let them do it. Eventually, they will also begin to hear that they will not succeed without the group because the Light will keep influencing them and they will understand that they need it.

People should not be forced to do anything. A person must be given an opportunity to be in the group in whichever way he wants as long as he is not causing harm. And anything that he needs to add to the group, he will add later.
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From the Virtual Lesson 2/3/13

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Question: I graduated from the online course and currently belong to a virtual group. Is it necessary for me to go to a physical group?

Answer: I understand that a person already got used to studying online. He has friends, instructors, and a network there—everything he is connected to and is constantly in touch with.

However, a physical group brings a person to the new level of relations since it shows him that he is full of egoism in a more clear, powerful, and effective way than any virtual group. Therefore, one has to join a physical group realizing in advance that he is going there to battle not other people, but his own egoism so as to understand it, to see the snake sitting within him and how he has to pull it from there.
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From the Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah, 02/03/2013

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Question: What is a sin in the internal work that corrupts its outcome?

Answer: If a person is already incorporated in the internal work but is now too lazy to constantly support it and to add to it, it’s considered a sin. Since if he doesn’t advance, it means that he is going backward. It’s impossible to stop and stand in the middle.

We sometimes think that we can allow ourselves to take some time off and to rest from this work, but in spirituality there are no days off, the clock is constantly ticking and the counter constantly counts our efforts, so it isn’t like our world where we can stop and be idle, to go to sleep and not do anything until the next day.

This does not exist in spirituality. Perhaps I don’t perform any physical actions, but during this time many Reshimot (spiritual genes) go through me, and if I don’t fulfill them, then it means that I go backward. So I have to make sure that I constantly do something.

My advice is to place yourself, even passively, under the maximal influence of the environment: to listen to tunes and songs, to read our material, to see a lesson one more time or to listen to it, to be among friends. But we have to be very careful in using this means of communication, since along with the gain and the great benefit it can also bring about great loses and harm if we don’t use it correctly.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Why should a person be careful not to humble himself before strangers, but only before the friends along the spiritual path?

Answer: The friends want to act with the intention of in order to bestow and so you can humiliate yourself before them and thus adhere to them, connect to them, and get close to them spiritually. Therefore, you should humble yourself before them.

But if you try to humble yourself before other people, then with regard to what do you humble yourself? Do you do so with regard to their corporeal desires and egoistic goals? They don’t operate towards the direction of the spiritual goal. When you annul yourself before a friend, it helps the two of you since you are serving as an example for him. If he is your friend along the spiritual path, then he will understand you correctly. He will see that you are working on self-annulment, on bestowal, and that you are giving him an example. This means that your action of self-annulment is correct in every sense: both towards the one who performs it and the one who sees it.

But if you behave that way with regard to a stranger, he will think that he is greater if you lower yourself before him, and he will take pride in it and his ego will begin to grow. He may also not understand why you are suddenly ingratiating yourself before him and would think that you want to deceive and to use him. From all these examples, we see that it’s only before a friend along the spiritual path who will understand me that my annulment can be beneficial for both of us.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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You have to humble yourself not before certain people but before the means for attaining the spiritual goal—the study, the teacher, the friends, and the group. It’s because these are not just people, but a system, and if you annul yourself before it you will enter your first spiritual state: Ibur (embryo). Of course, there has to be a different kind of annulment with regard to every means; with regard to the study, you should examine its essence and why it’s needed and what it is that you study.

The system is revealed to you in the image of the teacher and the friends. It is one upper system, which by its revelation to you depicts in you the images of Kabbalists throughout the generations and of the friends. It’s you that builds these images, and they are in you. It says, “Thou shall not make statues or images,” in the sense that you are forbidden to perceive them externally, that they exist outside your feeling. You are in front of the Light that depicts all these discernments in you.

So the work is in imagining only the Creator’s bestowal upon you instead of all these images. But in this general behavior of the Creator, you are allowed to discern all the individual manners with regard to which you can focus yourself.

It’s as if you are playing a chord on a musical instrument and you need several strings that are perfectly tuned relative to one another. In order to do that, you have a teacher, friends, this world, and the study. If you tune all the “strings” correctly by perceiving everything as coming from the Creator, you will be able to come to Him.

If you regard the teacher, the friends, the group, the study, and the world as coming from one upper source, then everything that you do to tighten the connection with them allows you to tune yourself more accurately. It’s as if you are checking every one of your strings according to the sound of this tuning fork and thus advance.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Rabash, “What is a Cup of Blessing Should be Full in the Work”: But before the Yenika (suckling) there is the phase of Ibur (gestation), which means that the upper corrects him. This can be when a person is like an embryo in his mother’s womb, as the embryo annuls himself before the mother and has no mind of his own, but as the sages say, “An embryo is part of his mother and eats what his mother eats,” and has no entity of his own to ask any questions, but he doesn’t rise as a name. This is called that he is mute and has no mouth to ask questions.

This is the time when a person can go above reason with his eyes closed, and believe in the faith of the sages and go to the end. This is called Ibur, that he has no mouth, Ibur means (TES, part 8) “the level of Malchut which is the more restricted smallness called Ibur, which stems from Evra and Dinin, as it says “and the Lord became impregnated for you.”

And the matter of Evra and Dinin should be explained, since the body resists the work that a person should go above reason with his eyes closed, and so a person must constantly overcome, which is called “wrath, rage and trouble,” since it is hard work to constantly advance by overcoming and to annul one’s self before the upper, so that the upper will do whatever it wants with a person. This is called Ibur, which is the more restricted smallness.

This is a difficult situation, since a person is not used to such an attitude. To annul one’s self completely is even more difficult than simply lowering himself, and being in smallness. We already have the preparations for smallness by nature, but the state of an Ubar (embryo), which means the transition (same root in Hebrew) from one world to another with regards to using our desires, the inner discernments, is a very difficult process.

Here we are required to totally annul ourselves in faith above reason in order to rise above all the discernments and the desires that are evoked in us. It isn’t a passive state as it may seem. A person has to participate in it and to make his greatest efforts in order to overcome the obstacles he encounters. Otherwise it will be impossible to annul the previous level.

He is called an embryo since he cannot work with the discernments and the intention of in order to bestow yet, and so he annuls himself before the bestowal of the upper and allows the upper to do whatever it does with him by accepting everything as good, blessed, in full consent, understanding and delight. In that case he is called a spiritual embryo.

From this we should understand how we should prepare ourselves and the group in order to enter the state of an embryo in the spiritual world. We have already talked quite a lot about this, and now we should try to fulfill this.

It is a state in which a person feels pressure, the Dinim that he encounters. He doesn’t understand why this happens in the world around him and what the world’s attitude towards this whole process is, but eventually he sees how the whole world begins to enter the state of Ibur in preparation for the new birth.

It is because the whole world is in a person and so a person sees how the whole world, all these discernments, enter the state of Ibur. To the extent that he annuls his previous attitude to everything that happens, he discovers that the whole world around him becomes the reality of the spiritual embryo. When he annuls himself, he sees that the Creator operates in everything around him.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/13

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Lately we have been speaking a lot about self-annulment. And this is no accident; I hope that we really are approaching it. Even though the ego is propelling us, we need to be directed to adhesion.

At the time of adhesion with the upper, I see myself as a part of some machine and I need to connect to it with each cell, each organ, every part of my “body” so as to integrate exactly into the work of this machine.

I don’t have a “head,” meaning, self-understanding; I need to annul all my thoughts, all my calculations, and all my desires. My only pleasure, my singular intention, and my singular desire are directed at how to integrate with this machine. Let everything pass through me, but I do not participate in it to begin with. I do everything as if I do not exist. They will activate me 100%, not only will they tell me what to do, but they will also activate me; this is called self-annulment.

After that comes disagreement, criticism, bad impulses, clarification, disappointments, complaints…and together with all this, I need to annul myself all the time to participate in the work of this machine. I find myself in it “outstretched and open to it as if I do not exist, and even though the desire and the mind begin to work inside me, I, with all this, still continue to annul myself. That’s how the fetus grows inside the womb: The Light of Ein Sof passes through me, but I take it only in the Behinat Nefesh.

The fetus annuls himself in the level of Nefesh, in the level of still, in Aviut Shoresh, the root level of the desire. Precisely because of that, all the Lights of NRNHY de Nefesh can pass through me. All his work in Mocha and Liba, mind and heart, in Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE) and AHP, in all his participation with Partzuf Ima, with Bina, is by him annulling himself. No matter how many thoughts and desires will pass through him, no matter how much he will be confused, no matter what obstacles will stand in his way, he continues to annul himself, and by that he is able to be part of the “body” of Ima (mother), to be inside her.

The fetus does not activate itself in any way even though all its parts are growing. They grow and work in annulment. The mother does everything through the umbilical cord, and the fetus completely annuls itself; each part of the fetus works only in annulment. Otherwise, he is not ready to be born; he could not become a complete newborn. He still doesn’t have the form of “man.” Therefore, he must finish his work of annulment toward the upper.

He moves, his heart, his lungs, and all the rest of his parts are working properly, but only in annulment. We don’t understand this, we think that this is simply a small man and that everything works in a regular way, but the whole form of the work is in annulment towards the upper. Otherwise birth is in danger.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/4/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“: Hence, those with attainment can compose books and put their attainments to writing in intimations and allegories. They will be understood by all who have been rewarded with the degrees that the books describe, and they will have common attainment with them. But those who have not been rewarded with the full measure of the degree as the authors will not be able to understand their intimations. It is even more so with those who have not been rewarded with any attainment; they will not understand a thing about them, as they have no common attainments.

If a person attains something, then according to his understanding he can imagine and clarify, at least a little, what Kabbalists on other levels feel. But of course, a person who has not been through the levels that the books speak about cannot understand what they are like. Of course, if a person is only in this world and has not acquired any spiritual attainment on any level, he will certainly not be able to imagine correctly anything that is said in Kabbalah books.

Question: Can we say that two people who are in the same spiritual world attain the same level of annulment?

Answer: But each one does only in his own way and according to his specific measure.

Question: So in what way is their annulment equal and in what way are they different?

Answer: Suppose I started studying in a university together with my clever talented friend; he is clever and I am not so clever, and so we are each required to make different efforts. He, along with his study, manages to have fun and to look for work; everything is easy for him, while poor me, I have to sweat over my books from morning to night and don’t see the light of day. Eventually we both graduate: He has a diploma and I have a diploma. This is what usually happens in our world.

But in spirituality it’s different; the whole point is the efforts a person makes. I feel the level that I acquire to the full depth of NRNHY, while he attains the minimal level of Nefesh. Therefore it says, “The reward is according to one’s sorrow.” The sorrow in this case is a person’s exertion. This is the way the opposite value between Lights and vessels is arranged.

Question: So what does it mean to be in the same world with someone?

Answer: We are on the same level, but the depth, the recognition, the understanding, the reasons, and the outcomes are different for each of us. On every level there are the Lights of NRNHY, the Sefirot KHB-ZON, the levels of the still nature, the vegetative, the animate and the speaking. A cat lives in our world just like us, but what does it understand compared to us? It’s the same in spirituality: What will a desire on the level of a “cat” understand and feel?

Question: If two people worry about one another and each one does his best, how can their effort be compatible?

Answer: Each one’s specific personal force doesn’t change, just like stem cells. It is rather the efforts and the exertion that change: to what extent each one has made efforts and is incorporated in everyone. If I am incorporated in everyone at my root point, at the end of correction I attain what you attain and we are totally adhered. But each of us can reach this adhesion from this root point.

Thus we differ in the initial “root” point in which there is no thickness (no “thickness” of the desire), but only the difference, the root, the posterior of Nefesh of Kedusha. We take everything else from the whole general vessel, eventually, we become equal in our attainment, in our understanding, in everything, but each one still sees it from his initial point. We remain different, the root disparity that comes from the Creator remains, and from it we begin to see and to discover His richness and variedness.

Question: The picture at the end of correction is clear, but what happens along the way?

Answer: All the friends are in the same world, but each one thinks and understands differently. Each one has his own abilities and skills: one is more talented in music or in painting, another writes books, and another makes movies, and still another only knows how to fix a flat tire. It’s the same in spirituality: At the end of correction there are no differences, but in the intermediate levels during the ascent, everyone attains the world in his own way, of course.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Question: What can a woman do if dissemination takes 5-6 hours a day and there is no time left for group work, in particular, to participate in workshops? How can we prioritize our time?

Answer: I think that one must necessarily devote a certain amount of time to their inner work. Although dissemination to the general public is very important because without it we will not advance, but if you do not pay attention to internal spiritual advancement, it’s not good.

You will fall behind in the material; you will not be with everyone as in one team, etc. We must still prioritize so that the inner work, meaning participation in women’s workshops, in general lessons and workshops, does not suffer because of external dissemination. You should tighten the schedule and not miss our general activities, especially workshops.

But without dissemination, it’s impossible as well, not because someone calls us to it, but rather because we reveal internally those gaps that will be filled with the upper Light. If we study without passing it to others, we remain just empty smart alecks because only mechanical knowledge will enter us, but not spiritual.
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From the Virtual Lesson 2/3/13

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