Good Environment – 08.01.11
Posted on August 1st, 2011
Question: We have the basis of correction: the question about the meaning of life. What basis do the masses have?
Answer: We attribute our question about the meaning of life directly to the lack of unity. The Light is manifested in unity, and therefore, we have to take care namely of our unity. It turns out that the meaning of life for us is to be connected with each other.
As for the others, the meaning of life for them is still in various egoistic goals. At the first stage, they should understand that a means of achieving these goals is unity. By becoming united, they will get what they want.
And then, on the way to this, they will gradually begin to understand, to realize: “Affordable housing is important, but unity is more important.” Then, they will come to correction.
Our explanations start from the point that unity should be used as a proper means to succeed in life. Hence, it becomes clear that we talk about the most important, the best tool that we have. In the language of Kabbalah, this intention is called “Lo Lishma”: We want to use the power of our unity for egoistic purposes.
Then, beginning to appreciate unity, we find in the connection between us an “added value,” which in itself provides a special, incomparable status, an unprecedented feeling. Thus, we reveal the “addition” in unity: We suddenly begin to like taking care of each other; we find a unique charm in mutual bestowal, in mutual guarantee.
This pleasure from mutual bestowal is that very pleasure that the Creator originally desired to give us at the Thought of Creation. Baal HaSulam writes about this in the book Ohr Bahir (The Bright Light) that the purpose of creation is to bring pleasure to His creatures by the Light of mutual bestowal between them and the Creator.
[49557]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/28/2011, “The Peace”
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Question: We often say that we have to play in a correct relationship in the group. What is this game?
Answer: The game stimulates our advancement. We attribute games to children because they grow and undergo developmental stages. And therefore those who no longer play, no longer develop.
Every time I define myself in a current state, examine it, and draw a certain picture for myself, this image of the future which I would like to be in, this transition from one state to another, is called a game. I’m playing it to be in this next image, to acquire this form.
In a game, we usually depict how we can benefit, win, and achieve something. There is an external game of reaching some external goals, and there is an internal game, when I make changes inside myself. But each is a game.
Everything that develops always has a desired state and reality, the idea of a future goal, and the aspiration for it. It happens at the vegetative and animate levels, not just with man. For a plant the game is in its cell, for an animal it is with itself or with other animals, and this also occurs at the level of human physiology.
Man is regarded as “Adam” and wants to become similar to the Creator by playing precisely this game: how to become like Him. To do this, he has to think about this form all the time: What it means to be similar to the upper one, to be His equal, to adhere to him, to resemble Him in properties—and to play this game in the group.
This means that together we have to imagine a state where in the connection between us, we portray the image of the Creator in our mutual vessel. And to achieve this, there has to be total equality and partnership. The word “friend” (Haver) derives from the word “connection” (Hibur), and the connection is only possible between equals, under the condition of mutual giving and love, a mutual guarantee.
We are nothing like that at all, but if the friends and I try to play as if we are in such a relationship, in our future form, then we are constantly striving for a connection and shared desire to take the form of mutual bestowal. And at the instant when we receive this form of bestowal, we will feel the Light in it, due to the fact that we have finally completed our connection! And then the light will turn on! This is the revelation of the Creator.
And so, we light it more and more every time, above all obstacles. After all, there is no game without obstacles.
[49206]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/25/2011, Shamati #39
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Man was created with the desire to enjoy which aspires to be fulfilled, feels deficient if it is not, and sees the whole meaning of its existence in it. Besides this, man has no sensation. All our sensations come solely from pleasures that we see before us—that is from what our world is built. Reality is comprised of the pictures of pleasures that our imagination paints for us.
We see around us the still, vegetative, animate world, and other people because our desire is composed of four levels at which we experience images of all possible pleasures. But if we do not want to live among these illusions and wish to see the real world, we must view it not from the desire to enjoy but from the desire to bestow. In fact, it is there that we find our root and our connection with it, meaning the Thought of Creation, its program and purpose. But egoistic desire separates us from it all, from the true knowledge, sensation, and purpose.
We have a unique opportunity to get closer to the true picture, to put a veil on the picture painted for us by our egoism. And it isn’t that we should stop seeing it all together, but rather stop giving it as much importance as we do today. Instead, we must search for the picture of roots that lie behind it, which emerges in the very same desires if they change direction from receiving to bestowal.
Desire is one, but all of its parts (the still, vegetative, animate, and human) must be transformed into bestowal. And then we will see the roots of that very picture which is seen in our desire to receive pleasure for ourselves.
This is done by “the shadow of holiness.” After all, when a person strives for this kind of shadow, he tries to make it himself. But soon he finds that he is incapable of it. He finds that his flight from the desire to enjoy and trying to put a “shadow” on it, meaning make the screen, restriction, and work above it, is impossible without outside help. It requires a miracle!
A miracle is something out of the person’s hands and not available to him directly as an obvious means. And gradually he comes to the conclusion that the very root, the upper force he wants to disclose, should help him and deliver the concealment.
But since a person asks for it on his own volition, it is counted as if he created this shadow. And so he conceals his desire to enjoy more and more, which is regarded as, “do not do to someone what is hateful to you,” and he acquires the property of Bina, bestowal in order to bestow (Hafetz Hesed).
And when he finishes the job and rises above all of his egoistic desires to Mount Sinai, he starts to work, even receiving in order to bestow, in “loving his neighbor as himself.” Gradually, all desire turns into bestowal, and so on until the end of correction.
All of this is accomplished by way of concealment or so-called “modesty.” It is the work when a person is looking how to hide from his desire to enjoy, to not use it directly, selfishly, and certainly not to use it instinctively without thinking, but only after rigorous analysis and testing. This is the very first stage of our work.
If the human in us learns to hide from the desire to enjoy within us, he separates himself from this desire and rises above the screen. And at that moment, he is connected with the root and makes calculations above reason. Thus he keeps walking the path and advances.
[49209]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/25/2011, Shamati #39
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The game is the most important chore for us. Therefore, when we are reading The Zohar, we have to play at being great Kabbalists and imagine that we reside in the same state as the authors of The Book of Zohar, those who first revealed how much they resented each other, but joined together afterwards.
In the beginning, they hated each other, and consequently, did not feel anything beyond their animate state, the state of this world. From such a deep descent, they started rising to the spiritual level of mutual bestowal and guarantee, and that is when their bond grew so strong that they revealed what is described in The Zohar.
Therefore, from our lack of connection, we too have to try to achieve a bond as strong as theirs, and then we’ll uncover what The Zohar narrates; we will reach the level of the authors of the book. If they started with hatred, literally wanting to kill each other, although we don’t reach such a deep awareness of evil, as much as we are able to do so and correct it, we’ll reach at least some degree of understanding of what they wrote about, and then we’ll climb up on the same degree that they revealed.
Question: How is the game connected with drawing the Surrounding Light?
Answer: The game is everything. It is the only action we perform. The game signifies that I strive for what I desire to achieve. What is the difference between this game and some other creative action in our world if while doing it, we also desire to get something out of it? Good question, but in this game we don’t really know what to do. It has an element of fortune, free will; it has something I cannot know in advance. And that’s why it is called a game.
In this game, I depend on the others as if we are in a true state playing in some imaginary action. But in reality, this imaginary action turns out to be true when we come to it. Therefore, the game is regarded as a serious business.
[49187]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/25/2011, The Zohar
The entire group and all of humanity in general construct “straight forms” (Yashar) first. I restrict my desire to enjoy, build a screen, and with part of this desire I continue to work further by faith above reason, in bestowal, connected with others.
But in certain desires, I am unable to work in bestowal towards others and I use them only for my own benefit. Thus, I simply restrict these desires. I want to collect myself in a “line,” to aim in one direction, toward bestowal.
Therefore, I build the “lines of connection” between myself and the others—the correct communication system. If after all my work, I manage to turn my desire to enjoy into bestowal, completely transfer it outside of myself, and use it to give to the others, it indicates that I have constructed the image of the giver out of myself. And I myself turn into a “circle.”
I am not stuck in the line anymore. Rather, in all of my desires, in all directions and possibilities, I aim to benefit the others without differentiating, choosing to give more or less to any of them.
Indeed, there are many differences and tests, but I do not test my abilities because I am a “circle,” not limited anymore. But in relation to me, they are not a circle yet; thus I can give to them more and more in various ways. And so it is until the end of the collective correction, when everything unifies in adhesion regarded as “Zivug Rav Paalim UMekabtziel” and turns in circles (Igulim).
In other words, a “circle” is a state of being an infant who isn’t developed yet and stays in its mother’s arms. And hence, he has no responsibilities but to cancel himself. This is how Malchut of the world of Infinity used to cancel itself before the upper force, the upper Light that filled it, and thus it had a “circular” form. It even stayed in adhesion but only by the grace of the upper one.
But in the very end, in State 3, when we return to Infinity once again, we build this “circle” on our own. Hence, we make a restriction on the initial state, create a working place for ourselves, and in it we build the perfect state—ourselves, instead of the Creator. This is described as “My sons have defeated Me.”
[49220]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/25/2011, Talmud Eser Serifot
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Thanks to our Kabbalah studies, we finally understand that the Creator performed, performs, and will perform all actions. And all that is asked of us is a request that constitutes our freedom of choice. That is, we have to want the Creator to correct us.
Everything that the Creator did with us before did not require our consent; we obeyed the direct order of our nature, and thus we had nothing to ask. We simply followed our natural instinct, satisfying our growing desire in all its manifestations. However, in order to give us an opportunity to develop on our own, to acquire self-knowledge, and to reveal the Creator and His actions, at a certain moment, the Creator begins to act against our nature.
This turning point occurs in our generation. The Creator does not follow us, pushing us forward, but stands in front of us and demands that we get closer to Him by our own will. In fact, this is our job: to mobilize within ourselves forces, desires, and the understanding that we must come closer to Him. And we cannot do that ourselves; we can only request, demand from Him that He brings us closer.
To do this, we need to come and work together to discover within ourselves the desire for mutual bestowal. We must recreate within ourselves the desired form of the Creator, the perfect property of bestowal. We have to aspire within our group to achieve such relationships between us that the force, existing there in concealment, becomes revealed. This means to reveal the Creator, to know Him, in order to cleave to Him.
Then, we will advance and govern ourselves. But just as before we unquestionably obeyed our egoistic desire without even thinking about it, so now we want to obey the Creator with the same devotion. After all the issues, challenges, and scrutiny, in spite of our objections and resistance, we want to be fully managed by Him and become His faithful workers, as it is said: “Love covers all sins.”
And the key in this process is to find the point of addressing the Creator, the request to change and correct ourselves each time. We shouldn’t look within ourselves for the forces and means of becoming “righteous,” doing “good deeds.”
Clearly, it is impossible to reach true prayer at once, and we have to go through much scrutiny on the way to it. But the main obstacle is a person’s thoughts that he is the master of his actions and should correct himself and his environment by his own forces. He forgets that he is merely clay in the Master’s hands, and that “there is none else besides Him,” the only One who performed, performs, and will perform all actions. And our freedom of choice, given to us to get closer to perfect bestowal, is only to ask it from that property, that force, which will reign between us.
[49425]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/2011, Shamati #50
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Question: Why is it so important that there is no connection between my actions and the reward?
Answer: It’s because otherwise you won’t be able to achieve bestowal and exit your nature! You must demand the reward above your nature, beyond it, and build yourself in bestowal for the sake of bestowal (Hafetz Hesed), without demanding any compensation for your ego.
It is necessary to be in selfless bestowal, in pure Bina, above all the actions, even if within those actions and the matter in which you execute them, you still expect a reward. Indeed, it is completely impossible to carry out certain actions and not expect any reward for them, remaining above the egoistic calculation.
And this is why, due to the environment and by utilizing all the conditions, we reach a state when we demand of the Creator to give us this ability: to not demand the reward for ourselves. I don’t know how He will do it or what it is; I have no idea how I will execute these actions of bestowal, but I want to!
We are always developing this request within: from degree zero to the final, fourth one, at every phase, with every examination. This is how we advance until we reach the true demand which finally reveals this quality within us. And from that moment on we begin to understand what it’s like to be in bestowal—what a true miracle is like….
[49417]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/2011, Shamati #50
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