No matter what happens in my life, I must understand that it all comes from the upper force that undoubtedly controls everything. But so far it isn’t revealed to me that way, but in concealment, and so I suffer.
The Creator is good and benevolent, but He is revealed to me after going through a “filter” that turns all the good into something bad and unpleasant. I call the thickness of this “filter” “single concealment.” In addition, the Creator can place another “filter” and send me to a “double concealment,” which is much worse.

So how can I get rid of the veil that turns the goodness of the Creator into evil? To do this I ask: “Correct me! But not so that I will get rid of the unpleasant feelings, on the contrary, they help me, and spur me. Without them I wouldn’t even think about something else. They focus me on You, on the source of something that seems bad. Therefore, I am asking for help in order not to feel that something bad stems from You.

I don’t want to be behind the “filter,” but in front of it, in direct contact with you. Not in order to feel good, but in order to know you better. I want to bless you, but now because I have no choice, I curse you. My body screams because of that; “I feel bad and I curse the source of evil. But You gave me the feeling that the evil stems from You. You are playing with me by using hints, half revealed and half concealed. But I don’t want to curse You anymore.”

Question: Where is the group here? I can also ask for all that without the group.

Answer: Try. If you start, you will be confused and you will discover that the true plea is only possible in the group. There you are protected from making mistakes; there you really turn to the Creator for correction despite your good and evil desires. Eventually the group allows you to see clearly what to ask for, what it is that you actually want and whom it is that you actually turn to. That’s the whole idea.
[89441]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/2/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How should we realize the obstacles correctly in order to strengthen our connection and hold on to this state in spite of them?

Answer: We need to overcome the obstacles. Undoubtedly, there will be problems and also obstacles, but it depends on how one looks at them. If you are ready for them beforehand and understand that by transcending them, you actually rise, then you don’t create them on purpose, but accept them prepared and prepare the group, the environment, for it in advance.

I remember how I prepared for an operation. They didn’t promise positive results, but I went into the operation with inner peace as if I studied myself from the side. It’s very interesting. It all depends on how you prepare yourself for the obstacles. After all, they give you an ascent, and without them we wouldn’t be able to rise.

What is an obstacle? It’s that same egoistic force that constantly pushes me forward. And here the Creator decides to help you. He takes back this ego and you are left completely without energy. There is nothing to do now, nowhere to turn, nothing is attractive; there is no motivation for anything. It would be good if it were possible to go to sleep and not wake up. But no, that isn’t an option either.

It is a feeling of complete helplessness, and not just helplessness, but a complete lack of desire, inner emptiness, and it is given to you only to fill the emptiness with the force of altruism and not egoism. The strength that motivates you forward is taken from you on purpose—thereby you are given a gift.

Now the group needs to give you some kind of push forward, at least a little, and then you will go forward. This means that you need to work with the group in advance, to help, to invest in it like in a bank, and then when you have no strength, you can take from it and advance.
[89331]
From a Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah 9/23/12

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Our whole path is aimed at exiting our ego, the only collective attribute in which we exist and that locks us within this tiny ball of feeling the reality of this world. In order to start managing ourselves, we need another force in addition to our desire to enjoy: a desire to bestow. With these two forces we can already begin to operate.

This means that we lack the force of bestowal that comes from the general force, from the Creator, from the attribute of bestowal, which is the real nature. This is why the word “Creator” in Gematria is “nature” (in Hebrew). And our desire to enjoy does not exist in nature, but is external to it.

All our work and our goal is to achieve the desire to bestow. Thanks to this we are incorporated in the Creator, acquire freewill between these two forces, and can become similar to Him, which is called the human level: the level of Adam.

We can only reach the power of bestowal by the connection in the group, which is a model of how we should fulfill it. In the group we feel how much we need bestowal, or the opposite, how unnecessary it is to us and how hateful it is, since it is opposite from our nature.

Thus we begin to work artificially and cry out like children who demand things they do not deserve. But children use our parental love and we still concede and do what they want although we know it is just childish whining.

It is exactly the same with us. If we also ask for bestowal egoistically, although no one needs it, and “nag” the upper one with our crying: “Give it to us, give us!” like nagging children, we will eventually get it bit by bit and will gradually be impressed by it. In addition to that, we are impressed by our actions and by our acting that we want bestowal, and so eventually we really begin to want it.

Thus we are impressed by one another about the greatness of bestowal and spirituality, although we don’t really see anything good, great and valuable in the desire to bestow, but rather the opposite. This means that we are acting like in a theater, and by this acting we develop; we are in an intentional lie and it is clear to us that all our prayers are false and our attitude isn’t real either.

We are aware of that, we know it and we declare it openly because it is the only opportunity we have to get ourselves out of the state we are in now. By this acting, we build ourselves under the conditions of the current state in order to reach bestowal from the desire to enjoy.

The lever by which we can do that is based on a spiritual spark, the point in the heart, with which we can start acting. It is a tiny point in the heart, which we perceive and start developing. If we perceive it like an end of a rope that was thrown to us, we can raise ourselves above our egoistic desire to the desire to bestow, like rising above the floor and penetrating the second floor through a tiny hole in the ceiling. Then with the help of this rope, we can pull our whole desire to enjoy, which fills all of the lower floor and gradually transfer it to the upper floor—rising from Malchut to Bina.

The spark that was inserted into us is a spark from Bina that fell upon us from the second floor through a hole in the ceiling. Through that hole we can move to the second floor and then pull our whole Malchut from there.

It should be clear to us that we are working with egoistic attributes. We are only playing with bestowal and don’t imagine that we are already righteous. If we still don’t know who we really are, we will undoubtedly know: The main thing is not to fear the truth.
[89372]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/7/12

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Question: During the convention I feel that the group is a small part of something big. How can we keep this fire going in dissemination too? How can we not forget that there is a group and that there is something huge behind it and that it is the unity of the friends that fills our work with meaning?

Answer: During the convention we feel a great force; we look at the screens and see the friends from all over the world. With us there are hundreds of groups and thousands of people sitting alone who we don’t even know. Of course, it enables us to feel something, but we have to try to receive the fuel from something else—from advancing humanity towards the revelation.

You are actually asking how we can receive fuel. Of course, it is the impression from a big group that first fuels us; here everyone knows me and encourages me; everyone sees what I do, and together we want to change the world. In short, it is the power of egoism that is active here.

But later the scale of values changes in us. You exerted yourself, you acted, even egoistically, by wanting to bring your beliefs and outlook to the whole world and suddenly you discover that you have run out of fuel.

This is how the Reshimot (reminiscences) change. It is because there is nothing but that which can change. Our Reshimo is the only changeable parameter, the only factor that changes. And here it changes in order to allow you to work in a non egoistic manner, not wanting to impose your opinion on the world, to prove that you are right, and to take the helm.

The next Reshimo enables you to think more altruistically: “The head of the angle is not we and not me. Let no one know, not even myself, whether I achieve any results.” This approach is already closer to spirituality and that is the way you are advanced forward from Above.

More intensive support from the group is needed here. If you connect more strongly with the friends, you will feel that you have purer powers than before, “I really don’t care whether my work is fruitful. Just like sportsmen, I don’t need to see the result. I want to close my eyes and to act only in one direction, without checking the ‘inbox.’ I don’t care whom I have influenced and to what extent he has changed. I feel that I can bring something to the world, I tighten my connection with the friends and move outward, and there is nothing in response.”

So where can you get the energy from? After all, in a situation like this a person remains like an engine without fuel. He doesn’t have the driving force; he needs some response. Here he begins to demand internally: “I have to see myself in the force of bestowal!” It is like changing a conventional engine with an electric engine, switching from gasoline to electricity, to another form of energy. This is what you demand, “The desire to bestow must be revealed to me! If I cannot work within my desire to receive, I need the desire to bestow!”

Then you will get it.
[89297]
From the Convention in Italy, Day Three 9/30/12, Lesson 2

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Question: How do I manage my states? Do they develop automatically or can I evoke them?

Answer: I manage my states when I am with the friends sitting in a circle with them and discussing different problems and options regarding the connections between us: When does the ego help us and when does it distract us? How can we attract the attributes of bestowal and love, connection, mutual guarantee, and so on?

When we discuss these issues, I am involuntarily in different contrasting states, such as “I don’t want to listen to a friend, but I have to listen to him, “he is higher or lower than me,” “I agree with his answer or disagree,” and so on. Why do I agree with him? It may be because I simply like him, but someone else not, so I don’t want to listen to him and I didn’t even hear what he had to say.

So, it isn’t just the process, but the issue itself, the words, and the interactions, everywhere at every level, when I overcome the egoism and the altruism. Eventually there is a revelation, an intensive clarification of these two opposing attributes inside me.

What is more, when I am in a discussion with all the friends, I first intensify my attributes and, second, I expand myself by absorbing them. Thus, a person develops in many aspects by the integration of and communication between the two opposing forces.
[89285]
From “A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 9/23/12

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There is an increasingly growing need for connection in the world today. On the one hand, the integral connection in the world is revealed, and on the other hand, the lack of our adaptability to it is expressed in the form of a crisis.

In order to help people who have the urge for spiritual development, which means for connection and unity, in this unity, in resembling nature, we will be able to reveal the upper force that manages it, to feel, see, and learn to master the system that controls us, the so-called upper world—for this we gather and want to gradually adapt ourselves to the state of balance with this system, with nature. Such a gradual, step-by-step approach is called the levels of the spiritual ascent, a spiritual equivalence.

These are serious, complex levels since we must overcome them and resist our ego. It is by resisting it that we get to know and attain this system.

Just as every system in our world operates on two counteracting forces (plus and minus, contraction and expansion, and so on), in between them there is a mechanical, electrical, pneumatic, or other mechanism, and these two forces are the forces of the development and motion of this mechanism, and in our bodies there are two constantly opposing forces. On the whole, they can be reduced to forces of absorption, absorption and secretion. We exist on the basis of these two forces. They more or less counterbalance or alternately act on levels of nature except for one interesting object: man.

A human being is under the influence of one force only: the egoistic force that controls, manages and rules him, and does whatever it wishes with him. There is no other force that is opposite to our ego, and this is our problem. So, we cannot be balanced, wise, and do what we want, but constantly do what the egoistic force compels us to do, even though it may harm us.

Look at what is happening in the world now! We are sawing off the branch that we are sitting on. We are polluting the air we breathe, cutting down forests, turning large areas into dry deserts, causing icebergs to melt, and bringing about disastrous changes in the climate so that soon it will be impossible to exist on this planet. The pace of this crisis is accelerating threateningly, and we cannot do anything about it.

Why is nature doing this? It is to show us the extent to which we are managed by this one egoistic force and how much we lack the other force that is opposite to it to at least reach a balance. Even if we were totally opposite to the egoistic force, even if we were absolute altruists, we couldn’t exist either. After all, there must be a balancing force between these two forces, the law of equilibrium, the law of the correct switching.

So, we need the other force, and we don’t have it. However, it is found on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate natures. It is instinct!

Instinct causes animals to perform certain actions and not others. It restrains them and doesn’t push them to perform misguided actions. If a lion sees a stronger lion, he will retreat. There is a clear chain of command, check the strength and instant retreat. That is, there are restraining forces with regard to nature and to different phenomena, no matter what. Animals operate according to the simple principle of the ordinary animal ego that is balanced by a protective instinct.

We don’t have that. We are deprived of it, but we need to acquire it since otherwise we will find ourselves in a condition that threatens our existence!

The wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed in our times so that, somehow, we will be able to acquire this second force that restrains and balances our ego. It is opposite to the ego. It is called altruism, the force of bestowal, the force of love.

If we can discover this force in nature and, in some way, perceive it inside us and begin to mutually balance the two forces, we can be sure that that our existence will be secure, comfortable, good, and desirable. Otherwise, our future development will be simply disastrous. We see how we are lost in the ego from day to day and that it will begin to consume us while we are still alive and eventually leave us no hope of survival.

This is why we hold conventions. We do this in order to acquire the force that is opposite to the ego, to try to balance the two opposing forces inside us, and to attain the middle point in which we can be free—with freewill, freedom of choice—so that we can manage ourselves and advance. This is what we want to achieve.
[89240]
From “A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 9/23/12

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Each congress is a certain milestone, a certain level in our ascending to spirituality; we gradually begin to feel what is meant by unity, adhesion, and connection and what our development requires of us.

During workshops, lessons, and especially during congresses, each time, we push forward and break through to another level that advances us towards the great force, the altruistic force of nature.

From within it, in turn, we begin to perceive our ego. We begin to understand the meaning of our nature by our control of the new force of altruism and by beginning to attain it and reveal its contradictory meaning, the inner depth of the altruistic force. We see how great and wonderful these two forces are, if used correctly. Through studying both of these forces at the same time, with their help, we begin to see the depth of nature: its inanimate, vegetative, and animate components, and also the next levels of nature.

How can we grow further by continuing to develop both these forces in balance? The forces of egoism and altruism will continue to grow in us. But what is there beyond the horizon, that is, beyond the level of “Adam (man/human)”?

Let’s suppose, that we balanced all of this within us and on our animate level we arrived at a state where we completely control ourselves, that all of our actions are completely balanced, rational, and are found in the so-called middle line. Is there a continuation of the growth?

And here we really reveal the wonderful attribute of balance of these two lines. If you have attained balance, then both lines begin to lead you, like legs, alternately, this time the force of minus (egoism) grows, and next time the positive force (altruism) grows, and thus alternately, like two legs, you advance one step after the other forward. Together with this, your growth is not limited. Everything depends only on you.
[89235]
From “A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 9/23/12

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Question: Lately I have lost all interest in and desire for the spiritual. I have become distant from the group, but the group did not forget about me and continued to care for me with constant love. This is why, despite everything, I decided to come to the convention in Rome, and made enormous effort to do it. And now here, I feel shame before my friends who once again have taken me in their arms, and I have experienced the love of my friends with new strength over these two days. But what do I need to do to make sure I do not become distanced again after the congress? I am very afraid of it.

Answer: I’m sorry about all you had to experience. But there is no other way but accepting that everything comes from one source, and we need to be grateful for both bad things and good things. I am very grateful to your friends who worked so hard that they were able to bring you back. I hope that from this day forward, all of you will only see goodness and mercy, love and warmth, which await you.

But still, no matter what happens, you need to hold on to the group with all your strength because it is the life jacket thrown out into the sea for those who are drowning. We have nothing else to grab on to.

And believe me, you will still see the entire country hold on to your group as if it were a life jacket. So become stronger, help each other, and continue. I wish you success!
[89293]
From the 5^th meal at the Italian Convention  9/30/12

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Question: What do we consider to be the group?

Answer: The group can be considered to be the ten people who I sit and analyze our relationship with.

The group can also be considered the dozens of groups that attend conventions. For example, there were 120 or 130 groups at the congress. It also is a sort of a group, working together on a single task, a single question, and this is why, accordingly, all the participants had the same thoughts, the same questions, and the same goal. The fact that they spoke different languages does not matter, because they did the same thing: they interacted, helped one another, they were in one field.

Our sensory and mental fields intersect, they work together: This is the way we interact with one another. Moreover, there is no law of separation in these fields, unlike any physical field that diminishes according to squared distance; when you distance yourself by two meters, tension, light, or any kind of rays become four times smaller. But here, no. Fields of desires do not decrease with distance.

For this reason, when one is in Boston, another is in Alaska, the third is in Kentucky, and the fourth in Australia, they still make up the group together if they are able to have an inner contact, which we have partially experienced during the seminars at the convention. If they have already experienced this contact, if they are able to recreate it, revive it within, like rekindling glowing embers, then the “distances,” all the disturbances that arise, will help them rise above the interferences towards this state and be on a good spiritual level.
[89279]
From “A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 09/23/12

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I am very pleased that we have begun to understand the greatness of the altruistic force through the connection between us, because in general this is the only opportunity to master it. This happens when we get together in the group and begin to try in some way to recreate and cultivate the state of bestowal, love, and mutual connection between us. When we are in mutual guarantee, mutual union, then we gradually start feeling what this adhesion can give us and how unusual it is.

On the basis of my practice, I think that the most important thing is to feel something unearthly, special, what emerges in a person. Inside it, the feeling, the property that was not familiar to him before, begins to be formed. He knows that it can be only inside the connection with others.

Then this property can gradually vanish, disappear like in a fog, cool down, dissolve, but a person still retains the information record of this state, so-called Reshimo. And he will still strive to it, will know, understand, and remember it. However, this is not enough; we must stir this property constantly and nurture it, as any bodily organ grows, any property, if we take care of it all the time. If we stir it repeatedly, it shows its new properties, new connections; it is not the same as it used to be. When we make it appear from obscurity where it was lost, we discover its new dimensions.

That is why unexplored paths, degrees, and states are before us. And on this path, we will certainly see many victories, ascents, disappointments, and what seem like losses. From all this with our constant effort, with a certain number of workshops and conventions, we will reach a point when this force that will manifest itself in us becomes so clearly felt and attained by us, so much in our power that we will control it. We will begin to interact with it and feel it as two partners feel each other in the dance.

This mutual action between a person, the force of bestowal and the force of reception (the man is the middle line), is the state that I hope we will be able to reach by the next convention, and perhaps even earlier. It all depends on how intensively we will be able to develop in ourselves those states that we have experienced and did not forget. So, everything is before us.
[89232]
From a Virtual Lesson 9/23/12

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