Question: The more I want to unite with my friends, the more I’m repulsed by them. I have nothing to give the friends but negative emotions. I’m feeling an intense feeling of disharmony. The convention is becoming a big obstacle for me. What do I do?

Answer: Very good! That is precisely the kind of people we need! Because the measure of your desire is expressed precisely in your efforts to establish a connection with others in spite of this repulsion. Thanks to the force of this effort you will acquire the force of the quality of bestowal, which may help you to immediately ascend to the first degree.

Question: I have this feeling that everyone around is ready to hear us, but we’re struggling to pass the Light to everyone else. Can the convention help us shift from this point?

Answer: Anything is possible at a convention. Some can cling to the quality of unification and bestowal for the first time. Others can actively participate in the formation of a collective quality of bestowal. Others yet, who have already received this quality of bestowal, exist in it, and perceive the upper world, can help the rest of the people in this. There is a whole spectrum of people at a convention: from those who want spirituality, to those who don’t know what they want yet, to those who are already in attainment and conscious of what they are attaining.
[44603]
From the Virtual Lesson 5/29/2011, Fundamentals of Kabbalah Series

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Question: Lately, you have repeatedly said that the group for a person is like a womb for the embryo, and that one has to nullify himself before the group in order to adhere to the walls of this womb. What does it mean?

Answer: “Three days of the attachment of the sperm to the uterus” means that a person cleaves to his or her environment: the teacher, the group, and the books. These three components carry a certain idea, the source and the force to which the person connects himself. He renounces himself on the right and the left lines and, by employing them both, the right and the left forces, he builds the middle line and thereby merges with it.

The right line is the line of bestowal, along which one moves “blindfolded.” To the left line, he attaches the thick coarseness of his egoistic desire (Aviut), while he himself is willing to cleave to the right line. And the middle line comes in play when he acquires a certain permanent level of connection with his environment and doesn’t fall below it.

And no matter what else may occur, he no longer has the thoughts and desires that would disconnect him from bestowal completely, from “there is none else besides Him,” from “the good who does good.” This signifies that one has attached himself inside the “womb”—his environment.

This is the most complex moment. And the key to the successful accomplishment of this act is to lower oneself before the environment. It is written: “Man’s Pride Shall Bring Him Low.”

Question: What does “lower oneself” mean?

Answer: To lower oneself means that without getting in your own way, you are trying to hear and absorb as much as possible of what the teacher is saying and to exalt the friends, to open yourself for receiving the greatness of the goal from them. This considerably expedites one’s spiritual growth.

And if one succeeds (which isn’t that easy), it is as if he finally gets on the straight road, and in this way shortens his trip. This literally saves him years of work.
[44514]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/25/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: If the Creator gives me an opportunity to reveal Him every moment, why don’t I succeed in spite of how much I try to achieve this connection?

Answer: It doesn’t matter whether you reach this revelation or not, but every moment the private upper governance works upon you. You have to look within yourself: What does He want from me, why did He give me this state, what do I have to do?

As the result of such searching, perhaps I will be able to reveal what He demands from me and perhaps I won’t. Maybe, He purposely confuses me so that I need Him to reveal what He wants. But I have to have some sort of “end of the rope” that I can grab onto.

It is said: “Do anything, but just don’t leave!” That is, do everything not to lose the hook by which you can hold on to the Creator. Every moment I search for how to find Him concealed somewhere within me. That is why it is called the internal wisdom, “the inner part of the Torah.” You have nothing to look for on the outside, but only inside yourself.

The Creator is within a person, within our desires. Usually, we imagine that we ascend a ladder in space, but this merely shows that we move to higher, greater spiritual states, bestowal. In essence, our entire search is internal.
[44429]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/31/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: During the studies, sometimes I think about how I can attract the Light, and sometimes I try to understand the inner meaning with all my might. Do I have to try and regulate these states, or should I just accept them as they come?

Answer: We have to study the upper system the way it is explained in “The Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” (Pticha) and The Study of the Ten Sefirot. Without this, we will not acquire the language of Kabbalah, and we will not have anything in which we can clothe our sensations, to express them in any way, or give them names.

That is why we have to know the definitions. In every science that we begin to study, we first of all learn the definitions and terms in order to understand its language. Having learned the definitions, we can start linking them together and come to know more complex concepts. However, for now, I’m just learning the terms and not the qualities I would be feeling. For now, I’m just playing with them like a child with toy blocks.

Hence, we need to study, and this is study in the mind. Yet, you shouldn’t immerse yourself in it too deeply. This system has to gradually become clearer in a purely mechanical form without your trying to attract your sensations or spirituality into it. Otherwise, these examinations will harm the inner work.

However, after you have learned the system, you have to look into how it can relate to you. That is why when reading The Study of the Ten Sefirot, you are sometimes thinking about your inner states without any connection with the text. But in some states you understand that all this is happening inside you, and you try to look for these states.

Sometimes you even start feeling that with every word you read, something is happening inside you; you already have inner, sensory reactions. Furthermore, you start to react in your sensations just by recognizing familiar words.

This means that the Light is spreading inside you and coming closer and closer to the degree of Malchut, organizing the inner HaVaYaH inside you, taking it to the first spiritual step on which the revelation occurs. That is why you start feeling and reacting to different qualities.

Of course, during the studies, you not only have to look deeply into yourself in an inner search, but also align yourself with how you are connected with the group and how you want to reveal the quality of bestowal between you.

You have to align yourself as follows: me, the group, and the Creator whom I reveal in the connection between us, and that’s what I’m reading about right now. Now you only need to start studying, trying to reveal this common network in which you will reveal the state you are reading about.
[44425]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/31/2011, Writings of Rabash

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The Book of Zohar, Chapter “Truma” (Donation), Item 75: One who wishes to set out to the road should rise while it is still night, watch by observing the hour on the east side, and see in a vision the letters that strike the firmament, one going up, the other going down. This is the sparkling of the letters with which the heaven and earth were created.

Of course, all these phenomena take place within us, within each person, and we have to look for and recognize them inside ourselves. We are talking about the connection between us, its kinds and nature. This is how Kabbalists talk about it. After all, there is nothing else.

Ultimately, we reveal the perfect network of connection between us called Malchut of Infinity and on the way, see it partially, in various forms. Consequently, when we reach the final correction, there are no more forms. Everything is dissolved in the white Light. As it is written, “He and His Name are one.”

However, for the time being, there are all kinds of forms, properties, worlds, and concealments hiding perfection from us, which we reveal once again through the structure of all these worlds. Concealment was created from above downward; from below upward, revelation takes place by the same steps, in the same worlds.

That is why we should try to imagine the entire text in the connection between us: what it talks about and about what forms of connection.
[44443]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/31/2011, The Zohar

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Question: During the reading of The Zohar, I feel very strong disturbances and hardly feel the text itself. How can I overcome this obstacle?

Answer: Everything depends on the persistence in one’s thoughts. During my life, I have talked to many people suffering from serious illnesses. They fathom their illnesses in great details and are familiar with all the medical terms known only to the specialists in this area. Why? Their lives depend on that. The desire to survive forced people to learn the causes of their illnesses and to seek remedies and various methods of treatment.

We don’t fully realize that we are dependent on our understanding of the “disease,” on the search for its cure. I shouldn’t rely on anyone else; I have to invest all of my effort into finding the cause of my illness, the remedy appropriate for my condition so that finally this remedy takes effect.

If people really feel danger, this forces them to learn how to save themselves. You are saying: “I hardly feel anything…” True, you do not feel the “disease.” Thus, the group has to work harder on you, and you should try to be persistent in your thoughts and pray that you will be shown from Above that we are talking about you.

The abyss between the world of Infinity and your current state can be seen in this obvious demonstration that The Zohar is now showing within you. Imagine this: If you were corrected now, you would feel the world of Infinity, the entire Zohar would be revealed within you, and you would see everything. To sense this, you lack only the vessels of perception, the corrected desires. At least realize what is happening.
[44510]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/2011, The Zohar

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Question: What would you wish for a person who has not yet decided to attend the Moscow convention?

Answer: I would wish the undecided to quickly and categorically decide: “I am going to the convention!” Right now, you have this opportunity, and you do not know when another one will present itself. Even if we were to have yearly conventions in Russia, you should not wait for next year.

Question: If I really want to be at the convention, but I am unable to go, what should I be doing during the convention?

Answer: When a person is unable to attend the convention, he should be with us virtually as much as the time allows. First of all, conventions are held on weekends, so you should free yourself from all things and problems, of all responsibilities as much as possible.

Try to get together with your friends who study Kabbalah and create the same convention-like atmosphere. Set a table with treats and have a good time together observing us. Be with us with your heart and soul.

Question: What should I do when I am afraid of the problems and disturbances that arise before me? How can I overcome this?

Answer: You need to connect with the group, with your friends, and with us. You need to try to evoke the upper Light, and you will see it lift you above these problems. I do not see a solution other than this.
[44537]
From the Virtual Lesson, Fundamentals of Kabbalah 5/29/2011

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We have only the desire to receive and the form of bestowal with which we must clothe desire time after time. This is man’s work which can only be performed by connecting to the group, the right environment, and assuming its form. There is no other place where I can learn the correct form which I need to assume.

The environment “sculpts” a person. By continually connecting to the group and performing his role, taking his place, in it, a person begins to assume the form of “Man.”

The group is like a template which imparts to a person the correct contours. The breaking of the vessels and the process of preparation are all that we need for everyone to seek out his own place, time after time, perfecting our efforts until we become a single whole.
[44520]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/2011, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: On one of the lessons I heard you say that when we read The Book of Zohar, a kind of flow arises that connects us. How do we join this flow, despite the various disturbances that awaken during the lesson?

Answer: This happens gradually. You must get used to it, to exert a certain amount of effort, to discover how to approach the text, how to connect it to yourself, to the state in the group, to the world; to learn where you get confused and where you don’t.

You must unify yourself and the Torah in one. Then, to the extent of your desire to connect to the Torah which speaks of your inner state, you begin to receive the Inner Light contained in it, which influences you, allowing you to see within the system it describes.

This happens in the process of the study, when the Light (the Creator) teaches you. If you try to move straight toward the goal, as much as you can, to use the group and the study correctly, if you’re ready to relinquish your egoistic aspirations and plans at least a little, then the Torah teaches you—the subsequent spiritual states are revealed in you.
[44440]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/31/2011, The Zohar

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Question: Where is the Light that Reforms: in the Torah or in my bestowal to the friends?

Answer: You receive the Light that Reforms from your effort to connect with your friends. We exist in a perfect, corrected system. The upper Light, the Light of Infinity, reigns over this system. How can you awaken this Light of Infinity to act upon you? You try to connect to the corrected system.

What is it? In what model is it presented to you? It’s in the group. To the extent that you connect with the group, in the connection between you, according to your efforts, the Light, the Torah, the force of bestowal, awakens. This force influences you and turns you, as well, into a bestowing part of the corrected system so that the Torah, this correcting Light, begins to fill you.

Question: Then how is the text we are reading connected to this?

Answer: In the text, you read about the corrected states in the connection between you and your friends. Just now, we were reading a passage from The Zohar. Where do I have to reveal everything that I have read about? I have to reveal this in my connection with the friends, in my aspiration to unite with them. Then, I will reveal all the properties, Sefirot, Partzufim, and the worlds in the connection between us.

Now, there are 125 degrees between you and me. Had I made such an inner change within myself whereby I connect with you with my heart and soul, in my mind and desires, I would have reached my personal final correction (Gmar Tikkun). Approaching you, bestowing to you, and accepting your desire as mine, I would have gone through all 125 degrees. I would have revealed the worlds between us, ascents and descents, in the relationship between me and my friends.

As soon as I unite with a friend, at least one of them, I finish my work. You don’t have to unite with millions, or billions, or the Creator because this is the same thing. If I cancel my desire to enjoy and can accept a friend’s desire as mine, it’s done!

That is why we read The Book of Zohar which describes various states that I reveal in the form of connection or separation between us, between me and the other—all the worlds (concealments) and separations are there.
[44317]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/2011, The Zohar

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