Question: During the preparation for the Moscow convention, many of us focused on the thought that the convention had already started, and we truly felt that we were already there. Should we constantly concentrate on the state of the convention?

Answer: If don’t see ourselves living at the next, higher, spiritual degree, we will never ascend to it. We should do what little children do which, for us, is an example of how to study the spiritual level while being on the physical one. If we don’t yearn to grow up, we won’t. Therefore, visualizing unity as an ongoing, permanent convention is undoubtedly useful.

Concerning the group, we should do the same. In my imagination, the group resides in the corrected state. The only wicked, uncorrected egoist is me. Thus, I am supposed to strive to be with them, visualize that I am already part of them, and clarify what I need in order to be included.

Our entire world is imaginary. However we see it, that’s what it is. Nothing is real. All of this is merely a figment of my imagination.

Put everything in its place. Give everyone, be it a group, person, or quality, a certain value, a specific degree, and you will see that thereby you are tuning the world like a musical instrument to make it fit you.

Everything depends on how you will tune it. What will be higher and lower for you will determine the direction in which you will move: either to evil or good, to stealing and drug abuse or to love and bestowal. It is all up to you as to what kind of world you will create for yourself. The world as it is doesn’t have any form. It all depends on how you attune yourself to it.
[45728]
From the Lesson in Moscow 6/16/2011, Writings of Rabash

Filed under: Conventions, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Perception, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: What does it mean to do inner work?

Answer: A person is supposed to do inner work 24 hours a day. It may be that one is so absorbed in it that having come to the lesson, he doesn’t see a word written in the book, but that doesn’t matter. The key is what is happening in him.

You shouldn’t blame yourself. Inner work is when you keep trying to hold yourself in adhesion with the internal essence of the group. As a result, when you open the book, what you see there is not some external knowledge, but rather the information describing the types of unification with the friends in the group and, more than that, in the integral soul.

You begin to realize that The Study of The Ten Sefirot, The Book of Zohar, and other Kabbalists’ writings describe only various types of connection between you and the others. If you honestly desire to have this connection clarified, you are studying the Torah indeed (the word “Torah” in Hebrew derives from the words “Ohr,” Light, and “Oraa,” instruction).

Question: So, my work is in finding this inner network between us, does it? However, how do I utilize the corporeal world for this?

Answer: Our entire world is the same kind of network between the people, but is its most external manifestation. This is why we experience it as corrupted.

As to our internal network of connection, we experience 125 consecutive degrees of greater bond, integral unification between us. Yet, our existing state in the external world is mandatory: This is where we start and exist so that we may delve into this connection deeper and deeper.

We need a foundation that doesn’t pertain to moving inward, and this is what the external network of connection between us is, where we exist in the corporeal world. It’s only now that it becomes revealed how truly corrupted this connection is, while previously we simply didn’t think about it. That is what obligates us to perform corrections.
[45711]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/2011, Writings of Rabash

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

Comment: In our age of satiation I know in advance that I need not exert effort to buy a Mercedes because in a month or two the charm will evaporate and I’ll begin to want something else.…

Answer: That’s true, but we’re talking about a spiritual goal now, not a Mercedes. If there’s something more important for you than the goal, then you will stray off the path. That’s obvious.

Comment: But the spiritual goal itself isn’t clear to me. I don’t even know what it is.

Answer: This begs a question: Does that prompt you to search for the truth? If it doesn’t, then you’re not advancing. Every day you need to conduct an inner calculation: “What do I have on the one hand, and what do I lack on the other? And when will I obtain that which I lack?”

Otherwise, if you’re missing the direction and the pressure, how will you advance to achieve your desire? If you don’t set a goal before yourself at every moment, you will not achieve it. Or do you presume you’re riding in a train with a paid ticket?

In other words, you’re being lazy like the others, waiting until suffering starts spur you forward and convincing yourself that simply putting in the time will have an effect. Is that it?

Comment: Naturally. But how do I compel myself to conduct these daily checks? It’s not like I have power of my thoughts.

Answer: Ask your friends to egg you on. They are one thousand degrees above you, so why aren’t you jealous of them? Why aren’t you ashamed before them?

There are people around you who have crossed the Machsom. Granted, you don’t know what that is, though you’ve heard the word before. These people sense spirituality, to a small measure, but still. And what about you?

But you don’t see this and that is why you aren’t jealous of them. That is correct. But you don’t see it because the intention to bestow reigns in them. If they were to reveal it to you even a little, you would run right back to your Mercedes. And that is why they don’t reveal themselves. Still, try to be jealous of their attainment somehow. You simply must.

The Creator is ready to give us Infinity, but we’re unable to receive anything but the thinnest illumination that He sends to sustain our present existence. You need to think about how to achieve shame, and for that you need exercises between you and the group. Otherwise nothing will happen.

Until you build a system of relationships with the group as you would want to have with the Creator, nothing will happen or will be revealed to you. It’s like you were given a construction kit with lots of little pieces to put together into a certain structure. If you do it, you’ll be given a more grown-up challenge.

But without it there is no advancement, for better or worse.
[46273]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/11, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work - 1 Comment →

My Good Environment – Dr. Laitman’s Advice and Principles for the Week

Filed under: Group Work - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”: Here before us is a clear law, that in all 612 Mitzvot (commandments) and in all the writings in the Torah there is none that is preferred to the commandment, “love thy friend as thyself.”

This is because they only aim to interpret and allow us to keep the commandment of loving others properly, since he specifically says: “The rest is its commentary; go study.” This means that the rest of the Torah is interpretations of that one commandment, that the commandment to love your friend as yourself could not be completed were it not for them.

“The Torah” is the Light that corrects our desires. We have to correct all our 613 desires and turn them into bestowal. It can be bestowal for the sake of bestowal (“whatever is hateful to you, do not do to another”), in the state of Hafetz Hesed when we do not harm another . And in addition, we can love the others as ourselves, meaning to receive for the sake of bestowal. In this way, we have to advance.

Only man exists in this world, and if he wants to correct his relationship with a fellow human being, then he reveals in himself 613 kinds of this relationship, which represent 613 corrupt desires. Then, he starts to correct them through the Light that Reforms by studying the corrected system. The Torah talks only about the corrected states, about fulfilling the “commandments,” meaning about the corrections that we have to go through.

The “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” explains that the Torah is divided into 613 counsels and 613 deposits. It is about 613 Lights that correct in us 613 egoistic desires directed to another.

We are talking about neither ourselves nor this world, but about the relationship with the other. Wishing to get closer to him, to reach him, I reveal 613 corrupt desires: This is the realization of evil. Then, I want to correct them, and in response to each desire a corresponding Light comes and performs correction. How it does it exactly, I do not know, and this is not my business. I just want to disclose evil and correct it to good, but I leave “technical details” to the Light.

As a result, my desires become corrected (obtain the intention to bestow instead of the initial intention to receive) and become filled with this altruistic intention. This means that the Light is present in them.

In reality, what can the corrected desire be filled with? It can be filled only with the following: I want and actually can bestow to the other. This is the fulfillment that we call NRNHY. Initially, from the side of the Creator who created the desire to receive, only the small Light of Nefesh was given, a spark, thin Light, acting in reality.

There are only a spark and the point of desire created as “existence from absence.” Everything else, without exception, comes only from the relationship between the Creator and the creature, who want to kindle the flame of love between them. According to the law of love, it is enough to give at least a fraction to the one who loves me, and then my attitude attached to this gift makes it infinite.

We should realize that by identifying our 613 desires that are revealed in relation to the other and correcting them from reception to bestowal, we obtain a large vessel of bestowal. And it is based on the very point of “existence from absence” that feels only its desire for pleasure. We have this point, and above it, we build a huge vessel which is all attitude, bestowal, and love.

Its essence is that very point. Expanding, being imbued with sensations, the desire remains the same. All it has is the sensation of what, how, and from whom it receives. In other words, it is the perception of the Creator’s attitude to it.

In the four phases of the Direct Light, there are just the desire and the Light of the first phase. Everything else comes from the reaction, the creature’s response as it perceives the Giver rather than gets filled. Once the first phase (a point of desire with the tiny spark of the Light of Nefesh) begins to feel itself at least a bit, it immediately starts to develop in relation to the Giver.

Thus, we must understand that the entire spiritual vessel, the entire spiritual world, is based on the interrelationship between the creature and the Creator. Nullifying this relationship, either through our own fault or not, we remain in our small, dark desire, which is our reality.
[45924]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/21/11, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work - No Comments →

Question: What is the group? Is it a kind of idea, people, or something else? Why is it so difficult to unite with people who aren’t like me?

Answer: Every person in the world is connected through his soul with the other souls. You need to enter this inner system of interconnected souls as though you’re diving to the ocean floor. And there you will discover the network of connections that binds all people.

Everyone is included in this network: Hitler, Stalin, Ahmadinejad, Moses, Abraham, and you. All the people you know only by their external form, as well as those you know on a deeper level, are all interconnected in the best possible way.

In the external world, every one of them fulfills a precise role in order to awaken the others to draw closer to this network, to dive into it, and find themselves there, bonded with everyone in heart and soul. You need to find the inner contact with them. The group is the inner unification of souls. And you must include yourself together with the rest.

Of course, speaking of the group, I’m primarily referring to those who study with us. But if you enter into this connection, you will see that this network unites everybody, even our greatest enemies.

We must understand that the external shell in which we exist in our world is given to us so that we could compel one another to do inner work. This whole game is necessary for you so that the Creator, the force which connects us internally, would be revealed in its external manifestation as well.

Internally this connection is maintained by Him, but externally it’s up to you do carry it out! And if you manage to erase the chasm between the internality and externality, this will constitute your complete correction.
[45715]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/2011, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Just One Step From Love To Hatred
Keep Your Nose Down, Raise Your Group Up
Choosing The Good Fortune In The Group

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: Rabash writes that a person must have faith. What does he mean by “faith”?

Answer: We automatically perceive the words we read in Kabbalistic texts in the traditional sense that we are accustomed to. On one hand, it confuses us to no end, while on the other, we have to understand that it’s not accidental: We simply need to clarify the spiritual meaning of these words.

The inconsistency and confusion between the traditional interpretation of the word “faith” generally accepted in this world and its spiritual meaning is caused by the fact that we still lack inner perception. As soon as we begin to experience spirituality, this word doesn’t confuse us any longer.

For instance, I may have heard the word “salty” a thousand times, but until I get a taste of it, I won’t know what it means. My knowledge derives from the sensation. The desire to receive pleasure has to feel the taste of fulfillment, and until then it will keep experiencing nothing but confusion.

Question: Why are there people who can immediately believe what they are told?

Answer: This is the level of development of a person at the still, vegetative, or animate degree. When he or she reaches the “speaking” (human) level, from then on they have to evolve independently.

One’s entire previous state gets cancelled. If in the past he trusted all kinds of tales, beliefs, and religions, today he feels empty. And when he finds a teacher for himself, he doesn’t trust even him. Nor does he trust the group or books. He is told the books were written by the sages, so what?

A person doesn’t accept anything blindly anymore. What does he do then? He has to advance  by faith in the sages—above reason. This means that a person doesn’t take anything “on faith,” but is supposed to verify what Kabbalists described.

In order to do so, however, he has to fulfill a few conditions: open the books, join the group, examine its principles, and clarify how realistic and grounded they are on the forces, properties, and laws of Nature. A person needs to perform this analysis so he may acquire a second nature which at the moment is concealed from him.

Question: But in this case, he is advancing by way of knowledge. Where is “faith above reason” in it?

Answer: True. Above reason is when a person accepts these conditions and implements them within. In other words, he views all the doubts, confusion, and obstacles as a vehicle, a platform for his spiritual growth.

A person’s entire spiritual work lies above reason, but at each new degree, he clarifies these conditions by way of reason. Otherwise, how would we know we advance?
[45718]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/2011, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Faith In The Sages
That Elusive Faith Above Reason
Faith Above Reason

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

My Good Environment – Dr. Laitman’s Advice and Principles for the Week

Filed under: Group Work - No Comments →

Question: On one hand, all our work lies in correcting the connection between a person and a fellow human being. On the other, the correction is done through The Book of Zohar. How can I tie it all together?

Answer: Correction results from the Light concealed in the texts written by Kabbalists. Yet it happens on the condition that we desire to perceive and comprehend the reality they describe so that all that is written in these texts would clothe in us and we would be in the same system of relationships between us.

It implies the connection between all souls to such an extent that we reach unity, become a unified system: Malchut of Infinity. If I strive to achieve unity as in “love your neighbor as yourself,” if I desire this, then The Book of Zohar starts talking about me.

As a result, I receive the force of correction from The Book of Zohar and gradually advance by reading it. In fact, the book itself contains nothing, but by reading it and wishing to be in this system, I draw the power of the force field that does reside in Malchut of Infinity—and thereby I reach this system.
[45887]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/20/2011, The Zohar

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Q&A, Zohar - No Comments →

My Good Environment – Dr. Laitman’s Principles for the Week

Filed under: Group Work - No Comments →