Question: When I work in the group and search for the connection with the common net, I use my senses. Would making the senses more sensitive facilitate the formation of a sixth, spiritual sense?

Answer: We perceive the world with our animal senses in order for us to be free of spirituality, both in its positive and negative manifestations. Indeed, the evil inclination is just as spiritual as the good inclination. All of this is the Creator’s forces. The situation is intentionally arranged in a way that allows us to be free from spirituality and develop independently.

This is the preparation phase, intended for us to prepare an independent point. Afterwards, when we ascend above the Machsom into the spiritual space, this independence will manifest in us taking on the Creator’s quality, His form. This is why man is called “similar” to the Creator.

As for our present perception in the animal senses, it is merely the preparation to ensure that we become independent from the Creator. Upon revealing in practice that everything comes from Him, we can oppose it and sway ourselves on our own volition, and not because nature forces us.

It is written: “No matter how high one rises above others, the evil inclination rises above him.” We are always given an additional desire to resist, balk, and stubbornly hold our position before the Creator. Otherwise, we would simply “melt away,” having lost our very essence in spirituality.
[42895]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/12/2011, “Peace in the World”

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Why does the unified force of nature, which we call the Creator who created us, develop us in such a peculiar way, by keeping us completely lost in our thoughts and desires? Why and for what purpose did He give us the deceitful illusion of this reality and continues to tangle us up so that we, like little children, keep running back and forth looking for pleasures, trying to grab more and more? What do we attain in all this mess?

Specifically by trying to recognize one causative force, one source, in this confusion, we make ourselves similar to this force. Out of 613 desires, 613 thoughts, and a numberless variety of predicaments, we build ourselves as one whole.

Therefore, the whole purpose of our spiritual work is to reach unity, mutual guarantee, become “as one man with one heart,” and unify into one desire, one spiritual vessel. We are doing it all in order to bring ourselves closer to adhesion with the single, unified force, the Creator, when all of us, as one whole, and the Creator merge together.

Baal HaSulam writes about it in his well-known article, “There Is None Else Besides Him:” It is written, “there is none else besides Him.” This means that there is no other force in the world that has the ability to do anything against Him. And what man sees, that there are things in the world that deny the Higher Household, the reason is that this is His will [to show Himself to us in such split condition, as if there is He and the forces against Him].

Because of this, we are given an opportunity to gain power over and recreate ourselves, while overcoming the confusion that makes us doubt the one force, the Creator, and trying to constantly find only Him in the image presented to us. This is what our work entails.
[42433]
From Lesson 8, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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The text of The Zohar is difficult to read in some places since it seems tasteless, doesn’t excite, amaze, or prompt us to respond. I see that it lulls everybody to sleep. What can be done, if we are separated from the spiritual state and have to connect with it? How else can the method of connection be built?

The state which I have to approach is beyond my feelings and desires. Nevertheless, how can I impel myself to come close to it? A small child looks at a driver with eagerness: A driver appears great for him. A pilot is even greater. A fireman is simply a hero. A child sees examples and wants to follow them. He has a sensation, example, vision, and connection. He can visualize the desirable state in the ego in which he exists. Nature itself forces him to desire this. Then, he moves selfishly, driven by his desire, urge, and aspiration.

We face the concealed world. It is hidden because now I don’t have any desire for it, so much so that I don’t see it and reject it. It isn’t even opposite to me since then I would see it as hateful, disgusting, repelling. But I don’t have even that.

So, how can I get closer to it? It cannot be seen because I don’t have any desires for it or any organs to perceive it. I was given a possibility to read about it, but I hear words and don’t know what they mean. I don’t have in me, in my world, in everything I am familiar with, any comparable phenomena.

If I am told about this concealed world by means of the words of our physical world: “the sun,” “the moon,” “an elder,” “mountains,” “sea,” “hills.” This baffles me even more because I begin to imagine what is happening in our world and not in the spiritual one. As a result, these words distance me even further. What can be done?

Therefore, Kabbalists use the language of Kabbalah. Reading the text written in the language of Kabbalah, you are prone to fewer mistakes because you see that Kabbalists talk about something unknown to you: technical terms that describe desires, clarifications, screens, Lights, degrees, and different numbers. All this is technology telling about something concealed from me. This text is much easier to read: It’s less confusing.

Why was The Book of Zohar hidden throughout centuries? It waited for our time so that people would not become confused and begin to materialize it. Until Baal HaSulam wrote his Sulam commentary on The Book of Zohar, it was very difficult to read it. If the masses started reading it, they would have imagined who knows what.

Even now, there are “teachers” who connect parts of the human body with spiritual activities: the right hand with bestowal, the left with reception. They tie a red string on the left hand, and it means correction for them. They haven’t reached spiritual attainment, and they think it is about what happens in our world. They don’t transfer this into the internal sensations, where we discover spiritual forces.

We must keep reading The Book the Zohar with perseverance and wait for the Lights concealed in the worlds to affect us. And it works! We have no book more powerful in its impact than The Zohar.

It is impossible to connect with the concealed world in another way. You need an adapter, an intermediary. What is this intermediary? You are told about something unknown, and you persist with your friends to aspire to it. Although you still have nowhere to aspire to, but if everybody says that it is important and concealed, you start to be impressed from what is still empty for you and to give it importance. Why? It’s because this is important for your environment.

Although it is not important for the environment either, and they simply work on you, this is sufficient. Then, you can develop a desire for the spiritual world which is opposite to us, and you cannot desire it. Thus, we reach spirituality by virtue of desire without a desire.

Otherwise, you will never reveal the spiritual world, or you will reveal it under the pressure of greater suffering, when overtaken by blows, you will rush to spirituality out of hopelessness, and not because you developed a desire for spirituality together with your friends. This is called development by the path of suffering, and not by the path of Light. Decide what you want!

If you are given an opportunity to move forward with the Light, to awaken it with your desire absorbed from the environment, but you don’t use this opportunity, suffering will befall you because you have to advance in accordance with the plan of creation.

It follows that the only free choice we have is to advance either by means of good or evil. But the fact that we have to advance is beyond all doubt. You have only a possibility to choose between the two paths, like a child who can opt either to become good or to remain bad. The end of the path is decided and known, and the time has been set. Everything was given initially except for your approach.

So now, we are at the point of an extremely critical decision: Do we see medicine in the reading of The Book of Zohar? It is true that I want to sleep, nothing disturbs me, the text doesn’t attract me, and it’s completely tasteless. The Zohar makes me sleepy….

But this is the true state. You are shown that you have no connection with spirituality. Get the desire from your environment now! Each is responsible for providing others with mutual guarantee so that they wake up. Then, out of total awakening, when we wish to wake up everybody, the Surrounding Light will come and make a small change in us. And we will immediately begin to sense what is written in The Zohar.
[42575]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/2011, The Zohar

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

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In commemoration of National Remembrance Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism

I liken the Jewish people with a special forces unit that was sent on a mission with a special task. On the way, the unit encounters various problems. Some of the soldiers fail, and some make it further in since they understand the objective better.

Suppose they went to another planet they knew nothing about. While there, they have to assess the situation and make decisions independently in order to take over a new territory. This group overcomes all sorts of obstacles, struggles through jungles and swamps, crosses a desert, deals with internal arguments, and goes through confrontations and reconciliations. It isn’t a bed of roses for the special forces unit sent to win planet Earth.

I think the example I made closely describes a battle we are leading. It also explains our special attitude and consideration for the fallen friends and those who are calling us forth marking the path. The process consists of many stages. It is a real adventure, a history of incarnations of souls that time after time carry out the orders they had received, until they reach the final destination.

When they come to the designated place, they must start preparing for the final combat. Everything would be fine if events would develop like in an adventure book; if we, similar to explorers of the new lands having crossed an ocean, would battle with natives, conquer or make peace with them, and so on.

However, we have a different kind of war, an internal, not external, one. We can’t let out our ambitions and blaze through the external enemy in solid egoistic rows holding up a banner. We cannot employ our natural instincts: envy, hate, lust, vanity, and ambition in order to gain victory by force. We have a totally opposite process here. All of us, together, must win in the internal war.

We constantly think that we are supposed to defeat an external enemy. In fact, it is just a game of imagination. If we conquer ourselves, the external enemy will vanish. However, in the meantime, we have to battle with it so that we may win “time.” So far, we exist in an uncorrected state that results in the notion of time. Thus, in order to free the space and time for ourselves to do spiritual work, we have to work on the corporeal plane as well.

Hence, we live in the world which is split in two. One of its parts is material, and the other is spiritual. We should treat the friends in a similar manner. Some of them lead material battles, and the others lead the spiritual ones. Both make vital contributions to this exalted war, the purpose of which is to reach the end of correction.

According to Baal HaSulam, many friends will fall on the path, and more will fall in the battle field, internal and external. However, in the end, all of them give their lives to reach the purpose of creation. Therefore, their souls incarnate and line up for the battle yet again, until all of them are transformed, having reached unity and adhesion.

As for us, we must always look forward to the future, rather than to the past, and strive to battle internally, which will greatly reduce the external battles.
[42620]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/9/2011, About the Israeli Nation

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Question: Why was it necessary to withdraw from the Creator to the utmost point in order to get corrected and come to adhesion with Him?

Answer: It is not sufficient to descend through all of the worlds to this one. We have to descend even deeper. Only when we enter the group do we start attaining what a “broken man” is. Then, we fall lower and lower, much deeper than when we just started to study.

After all, previously, we were not familiar with our evil inclination and didn’t feel bad about it. At that point, we still thought that the desires we had were good, and the more our ego evolved, the more energy it provided for us to advance.

Then, we begin to want to unite with the others and reveal the internal essence of the group. We do this while constantly thinking about it in order to find the internal connection between us, which does exist, but is concealed from us. It’s only then that we discover that we always forget about, reject, and hate it. Thus, a person gradually starts attaining his nature.

This is still a descent since he hasn’t revealed all his evil, and all ascents and descents are defined solely by how the creature feels about it. A person doesn’t see himself as more distant from the Creator just yet. All of his understanding and experience is based on the degree of his being distant from Him, as if he is moving further and further away.

Hence, he feels an even greater void, bitterness, and frustration. He doesn’t understand how it can be that he works and studies so much, only to feel worse as the world is becoming still darker for him. Yet, he finally realizes that this is how the created being is revealed, and it is necessary to go through it.

In the end, he agrees with it, which is regarded as “unconditional acceptance.” He is prepared for whatever may come and thinks that it’s all right if he feels lower than low; most important is not to give up!

In that case, he receives an even greater burdening by the ego while, simultaneously, he gets an opportunity to correct it. Here the advancement is based on two opposites since when he starts correcting, equalizing himself with the Creator and coming closer to Him with every new step, he must reveal his opposite nature in the “left line.” Then, in accordance with that, he will plead for the Light “in the right line” and correct himself in the “middle” one.

That means that over the course of this entire ascent to Malchut of the world of Infinity, to the very last moment, the adhesion regarded as “Rav Paalim UMekabtziel (He Who Blesses and Adorns Her),” he will keep revealing increasingly greater evil. It cannot be avoided.

Otherwise, we won’t find in ourselves the need for the Light. We need room where we can make the Creator within ourselves. This space is supposed to be opposite to the innate properties of the Creator, and then it will be up to me what to do in it.

That is why we find this void, all the places that comprise it, and all of its parts as separate, opposite, and distanced from one another, like the broken parts of a construction set. We, however, begin to assemble it, looking for matching pieces and placing them in the correct sequence, in the correct order of cause and effect, so as to align all the details that were taken apart.

Thereby, I reveal how the Creator feels about me, that He is good that does good which created the point of “existence from absence” that I need to correct in myself. This awareness that I am created “from absence” helps me understand the “existence from existence” (Yesh Mi Yesh) which created me.

The entire process that this point created by Him passes through is necessary solely so that I may attain the infinite Light. All these stages were pre-set long before, during the plan of creation, preceding the creation of this point “from absence,” as it is said: “The end of an action is in its initial thought.” Thus, it arrives at the attainment of the force that created it and to the understanding of what the essence of this entire correction process was.
[42523]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/8/2011, ”All Who Suffer for the Public”

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In our spiritual work we cannot do anything ourselves because we don’t know how to identify the unified force and relate it to many situations in our life. What should we attune ourselves to? Simply saying that the Creator is everywhere doesn’t help.

This is why we are given the group, and if we unite together, we discover this unified force called “there is none else besides Him” between us. The Creator deliberately split the creature He had made into a multitude of parts so that they would reassemble once more into a single thought, a single desire. Then, in this common desire, they will reveal the unified force that exists only in the connection they have formed, in unity and adhesion with them.

By uniting together into one desire, we don’t attain this force outside of us, but reveal ourselves and this force together as one whole. Indeed, there is no Light without a vessel (Kli), there is no Creator without the creature. The closer we bond together, the more we reveal the Creator within our unity.

In other words, our unification is the Creator. That is what it was at the start of creation, after which we dispersed and descended to this world in the form of small egoistic creatures.

Therefore, by uniting together we are building the Creator. We are creating Him independently, which is why He is called the Creator (in Hebrew Bo-Reh or “come and see”). There is no other place where we can build Him, discern Him, unite and achieve adhesion with Him, but only within our unification in the group. And all of humanity will need to connect together in the same way.
[42427]
From Lesson 8, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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

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To reveal the first spiritual degree, we must reveal our unity, “one, unique, and unified,” at least in the smallest degree. The degree of our unity defines the level of our first spiritual degree.

The Lights of Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, and Yechida (the five spiritual degrees) are characterized by a sum of particular details and the power of their unity, despite the fact that they are all in contradiction with one another. It is the only factor that determines the revelation of the upper Light. If we can find unity in the smallest degree, the weakest Light of Nefesh will become revealed as well.

However, why does the Light suddenly become more powerful and is called Ruach? It is because despite the changes and the movement of all interconnected parts, they can still remain balanced and tied. It is as if we keep the boat afloat, while it’s being tossed by waves in a storming sea, and make sure that it keeps stable.

At the first degree of unity, mutual transformations are not yet revealed. Everyone stays in some kind of stationary condition, just as one is, and we seek how to connect with each other. At the second degree, the same unity remains, but every part begins to transform; the cogwheels of the common mechanism as if start spinning relative to each other. And if we stick together despite all these changes and are able to unite, we reveal the Light of Ruach.

These are very limited changes nonetheless: While “staying grounded,” just like a plant, each of us, in our own place, sees the transformation of our individual properties. It is still the same Light of unification but at a higher (“vegetative”) degree. It is followed by a third degree, Neshama (“the animate” degree), where we start moving freely relative to each other, but still reveal unity, “one, unique, and unified,” among ourselves.

This means that the Light we experience in spirituality always depends on the power of our unity, despite any transformation that may be occurring within each of us individually and all of us together. It keeps growing, until we finally reach the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun), while we are experiencing all sorts of changes preventing us from unification in relation to one, single Light, but regardless of this, we are still able to unite.

This is what we call the one, unified spiritual vessel (Echad, Yachid) that receives one Light: Yechida.
[42331]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/5/2011, Shamati No. 56

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Question: If the general and the particular are equal, then the group, as well as an individual, should fear a possibility that we won’t transcend our ego?

Answer: If it is really a “group,” it transforms from the general into the particular, into “one whole” in relation to the Creator. And in the degree that the group becomes one particular “individual,” reaches unity and guarantee, one common consideration, this “individual” turns increasingly rich and exceptional, by unifying various states of all its participants within itself.

The Creator is described as “One, Unique, and Unified (singular).” So is the group, if it acts as “one” but unites in itself actions of many people, it is regarded as “singular,” “unique in its right.” And this is what determines the power of “one.”

The group isn’t measured by the number of its participants. It is defined by their unity, the quality of their bond that is characterized by the fact that they unified, having risen above their egoism for the sake of the rest. This is what makes the group powerful since in spirituality, power is determined not by quantity, but rather by quality, and is a result of many ties, specifically due to the fact that they are unifying as one whole.

This is the force with which we discover the spiritual world! If we can reconcile all these meanings together: “One, Unique, and Unified” as pertaining to the connection between us, we will come to the Creator’s revelation.
[42334]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/5/2011, Shamati No. 56

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