Question: How can the group compel me not to discontinue my inner efforts?

Answer: You have to completely immerse yourself into the group and reveal there an inner network of mutual inter-connection. Imagine that there exists a certain system called your environment where you are connected to as its inseperable, integral part. You depend on everybody, and they completely control you: your thoughts, desires, intentions, and actions.

However, it is your desire to be under the total, absolute authority of others, to completely lose yourself in this inner system by uniting with everybody as one man with one heart. You are ready to be hypnotized by them.

It’s similar to how a seed thrown into the soil submits to its rule and, by receiving nourishment from that environment, acquires strength to grow and develop.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can we increase the speed of our advancement? What does it depend on?

Answer: The right speed of advancement is set primarily by my ability to constantly feel the inner system in front of me, in which all of my friends in the group are connected into one. I’m the only one existing outside of this bond, and I have to decide that I must connect with them, find there the force of correction.

And then I have to examine all my desires and thoughts in order to understand whether I will be able, like a spider, to braid all of us with a thousand of threads so as to tie myself with my friends as strongly as possible.

Question cont.: And who sets the pace?

Answer: Your efforts determine the pace. Indeed, the moment a spiritual action ends, it becomes the beginning of the next action. There is no recess in spirituality.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/2011, Writings of Rabash

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In our world “pretense” sounds like something dirty. We scold people for this, “Why are you so unnatural? Why do you pretend and lie?”

But in our case, we are pretending or playing with the most natural and authentic actions because they help us to rise above the material world. As I “play” spiritual states, I imagine myself there and elevate myself to them.

I don’t just want to entertain others by transmitting my joy to them. Joy is not simply laughter, but fulfillment by confidence and the correctness of the path, the goal I believe in. And this joy gives me strength.

This is the same fulfillment that has to reign inside all of us by virtue of our unity, meaning in the true, corrected state, in the world of Infinity. By playing it, I make efforts to fulfill our common desire (the spiritual vessel or Kli) just like in the state of the world of Infinity.

This is a very exalted and worthwhile game which is reminiscent of the Creator’s game with the Leviathan (the mythological whale). The Creator, the desire to bestow, plays with the creation He created, the desire to enjoy, spinning it in all the different directions and filling it with the Light of Hochma.

That is how I want to fill our entire group’s common desire to enjoy with the Light of Hochma. That means I am playing with very exalted things, even though it appears like a very simple action that any person is able to make.

We have to understand that from a person’s perspective, this game is a very serious action. And our ego does not allow us to lower our pride in order to become part of this game and start carrying out these actions in relation to the group. Granted, there are people who find this easy to do externally, as well as others who find it easier to express themselves internally. But the inner work is every person’s obligation and has to result in an elevated mood being maintained in the group.

Externally things might vary. There are times when externally you have to pretend to be inspired all the time because if you are surrounded by “little children,” you cannot allow yourself the liberty of showing them the true state. However, if it is a group of advanced students, they can do the opposite; instead of playing externally, they can remain serious and even express their sadness in order to create an opposition between the internality and the externality. That is how the great Kabbalists of the past behaved. However, we are still small and have to play or pretend externally, expressing joy.

Naturally, all of our dissemination must consist of programs that bring joy and leave people in a good mood. There should be fewer songs that are sad and sorrowful, and more happiness! We have to feel the heart of the friend or of the wide audience and take care not to bring them down or cause them to feel deep sorrow, but instead, to let them feel joy and unification. This is the entire wisdom.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/22/11, Preparation to the WE! Convention

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Only after we have applied all the efforts to unite with each other can we hasten our development and return to the authentic and corrected sensation of reality in order to wake up from this dream, this concealment, in which we exist. We can go by the path of suffering, but it is not development! We do not arrive at an autonomous desire to return to the Light, to the state of adhesion with Him in which we once existed in the world of Infinity.

We have to come back to the world of Infinity and merge with the Creator into one whole, but we must do so by our own desire and by ourselves. It shouldn’t be as it was earlier when, not having the intention, we were under the rule of the Light which sustained our connection with its force, in spite of the complete opposition of our desires. The Light simply filled us without our agreement: This is how we existed in similarity to it, being supported by its force.

But now we have to come to it by our own authority. First, there has be the desire and then its contact with the Light. In the initial State 1, the Light precedes the Kli (vessel). In the final State 3, when we return to that very same unified soul, the desire precedes the Light.

And all the sufferings and afflictions that push us forward do not result in real advancement; we do not correct anything thereby. After all, we haven’t done anything ourselves. And only if we try to act ourselves, meaning to work on our unification which we reach against our egoistic desire, against our resistance, only then our efforts are regarded as our contribution to correction.

Hence, the Light will never concede and allow us to progress without our free participation and the yearning to return to the state of unity. We ourselves have to decide that we are returning to bestowal—to the degree that we unite against the force of the breaking, which dwells among us.

A person has to understand that within his efforts to unite with the others he will find everything: the force of separation, breaking, and hatred, as well as the force to overcome this division: the force of love and connection. And only such actions go toward his account and draw him closer to the final correction. They are the only indication of his progress.

In any situation, we need to try to see ourselves as one man with one heart who represents our collective soul.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/24/11 Preparation for the WE! Convention

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Our world is built of the desire to receive and controlled by pleasure, which this desire keeps running after. We are constantly tormented either by the absence of pleasure or its beckoning light from the future, which forces us to develop.

When a person more or less realizes what he or she wants, it is regarded as the “developmental gene” (Reshimo), which is the part of desire that somehow sees the future delight and yearns precisely for it. In our world, such development occurs naturally. New desires keep unfolding in us, while against them, there is the Surrounding Light that attracts desires to itself, to pleasure.

Essentially, man is desire that yearns to feel good. And if we suddenly stop feeling pleasure at all, we immediately feel a halt and a lack of energy to move on since that desirable pleasure was precisely the source of energy for us.

Thus, we kept developing, moving forth along the chain of Reshimot that were actualizing in us automatically, without us being aware of it. But this chain is finite, and it has come to an end! And now, it gives way to a very unique, spiritual gene, in which the Reshimo (desire) and the Surrounding Light that illuminates it don’t match and are even opposite to each other.

And it turns out that I don’t see how I can receive this Light that tantalizes me. Something is calling out to me, but I do not know how to reach it because first, I have to become similar to it, to receive an anti-egoistic screen for this Light.

At this point, a person stops in his tracks and can’t move. All he can do is ask: “What do I need this life for, and what do I do next?” as if getting cornered in a dead end. This period can last a long time because any spiritual development requires many internal efforts from us until a person gets used to and becomes receptive to it.

And finally, he still makes a certain change in his life: He arrives at the place where he hears that it is possible to actualize this new desire, in order to reach fulfillment. He doesn’t yet understand how to accomplish it all, but already starts to move ahead along the degrees of understanding: 0-1-2-3-4 that must be walked to the very end, to the last 4th degree, so he may comprehend something from this segment of his development.

And then, there starts another new cycle: 0-1-2-3-4, and so on. And all of this may take many months. But now, while moving along these preliminary stages: 0-1-2-3-4, a person feels that a secret is hidden in this place, which lures him and doesn’t let him leave.

Thus, one gradually gets ready to hear such terms as the “group” and “correction” that must be performed with its help, as well as about the correction of the entire world. It is a rather lengthy process. But the point is that a person finally gets to know that he lacks a new force: equivalence between the nature of his desire and its fulfillment.

Desire must match its fulfillment! It is the desire to receive pleasure, but it must enjoy bestowal, and then it will be fulfilled. After all, fulfillment that is standing before it is the fulfillment in bestowal. And in order to learn to enjoy bestowal, a person is led to the group where he gradually starts to understand where he’s been brought to and what is going on there.

He suddenly understands what all the articles were talking about, which he used to read and discuss without any idea what he was saying, what kind of group he was in, and without any understanding why he was here and how he ended up in it. But now, he can gradually comprehend that the group is, indeed, the place of actualizing his spiritual fulfillment; he realizes that only with its help will he be able to change the type of his fulfillment from reception to bestowal.

If he does so, he will be able to enjoy the Light that will come and fulfill him as much as he expands his desire to enjoy bestowal.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/2011 Preparation for the WE! Convention

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

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Writings of Rabash, “Love of Friends”: A man found him while he was wandering in the field and asked him, “What are you looking for?” To which he replied, “I am looking for my brothers. Tell me, where are they?” … This is talking about a person who has veered off the path of the spiritual development, who does not know the true way there, who has already reached despair and thinks that he will never attain his goal. That is why he answers, “I want to be in the group where there is love of friends because then I will be able to ascend up the path leading to the Creator.”

That is how we wander around, not knowing how to reach the right state. We don’t understand how to establish the connection with spirituality and where to find it. However, in fact we are already in the spiritual world now, which is why we are wandering around this field. We already have the opportunity to establish a relationship with the group and to connect with the friends, but we are unable to do this. Thus, we walk by, like we are blind. We are already in the right place, but we cannot find this connection, as if we are wandering around in the dark.

This darkness is not outside, but inside of us, as a result of our blindness and lack of understanding. What’s missing here is some kind of epiphany in feeling and reason so I would understand in what form I have to connect with the friends. Then I will find how to make the breakthrough to the spiritual development, to the first contact with spirituality which is called “three days of absorption of the spiritual seed.”

For that I have to understand how to bind myself to the environment the right way, and that is the most difficult thing to do. In our world we know of cases when a woman is unable to get pregnant. And it is much more difficult yet to get into the spiritual world.

The Torah talks about the great problems of infertility that each of the fore-mothers had and how difficult it was for them to get pregnant. This is a symbol of how difficult it is to bind oneself to the environment.

How, then, is it possible to help a person who feels that he is lost and does not see any chance of advancing spiritually? He has put years into it and seems to know and understand everything, other than the direction. At first he thought that the knowledge he receives will help him, or some kind of actions, or maybe time will do the job.

But later he reveals that nothing helps him and then he becomes confused. That is when an angel comes to him and finally asks him, “What are you asking for? What are you looking for here?” Then the person checks himself and starts to understand that he lacks precisely the connection with the environment, “I am looking for my brothers!”

This is already a great attainment where you understand that you will be able to realize your spiritual development only on this path, inside of the connection with others. The group turns into a spiritual place. Instead of the material, physical group that he sees now, he will feel the inner connection between everyone and will turn this connection into mutual bestowal. He will reveal the net connecting them, which is called the system of the upper worlds, and all of the worlds will enter it.

This group will become the place where he will gradually reveal all of the spiritual levels, until he will come so close to the other 125 levels that he will unite with them into one whole. This will be called the end of his correction (Gmar Tikkun).

If a person begins to feel that he will be able to realize his spiritual development precisely in this way, through the relationships with the environment, this means that he is wandering around the Creator’s field and looking, while knowing what to look for and what to ask for. He still has to go through a difficult road up ahead, but this point where he decides that the spiritual world can only be reached through unity with the environment is extremely important. That’s because it is opposite to all of his previous, material, egoistic development.

This point marks the beginning of his development and his connection with others “from himself outwards, for the sake of bestowal.” Therefore, this point is the beginning for the new path.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/11, Preparation to the WE! Convention

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Question: I try to think about our unification, the connection between us all the time, especially during the reading of The Zohar. But how does the Light work on me when I attempt to exert these efforts? What changes does it perform in me?

Answer: The Light is at absolute rest, it does not do anything with you. You perform all the changes. Can you use the Light? Do it! If not, then don’t. It’s similar to electricity: Is it connected to an electric outlet? If so, use it! How? Any way you want! You can use it to run a refrigerator, a heater, anything you want.

How does the Light affect you? It doesn’t. You elicit this action from it.

It is said: "I did not change my HaVaYaH (the plan of creation)," which means that the Creator is at absolute rest. This is why the Light does not do anything! You perform everything with your own actions; you transfer yourself to the next state. And if we say: "Let the Light work" or "the Light does this or that," we simply ascribe our actions to it.

We activate the law, and it works. The law is in action; its formula is known. It exists beyond us and is called "the law of the similarity of properties of the Lights and desires (Kelim) or the "law of balance."

There are no actions from the side of the Light. The Light carried out the only action: It created the desire to receive pleasure, "existence from absence." And by the way, it’s not the Light we are talking about.

And the desire to enjoy, existing in that Light as created from "absence," changes all the time. All the transformations of properties, the development by the four phases, etc. that we discuss occur only relative to that desire, the creature. All of it is the changes of the desire to receive pleasure inside the constant Light.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/24/11, The Book of Zohar

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The difficulty lies in the understanding that the group, the environment, is not a temporary setting that won’t be necessary after a while. The group never disappears, and it is impossible to gain spiritual fulfillment by any other means. From these strangers, people I once resented, from their internal world, I have to construct my own soul.

And instead of seeing their faces, personalities, and behavior, I must see only their internal desires so that I build a “spiritual body” from them, which I could bestow to and get inspired by. And if we do our mutual work in this manner, we will provide the guarantee, a sensation of support, the forces for development and bestowal for everyone.

Then, you will feel as though you are protected from evil in this group, as if you are in “Noah’s Ark.” We often find such “sanctuaries” along our path. It is similar to the mother’s womb where we develop in stages: embryo-feeding-maturity (Ibur–Yenika–Mochin), until we are born on a new spiritual degree, in the new world.

This is how we view the group until our connection with it is so strong that we begin receiving the Light through it, the properties for our new development, as in Noah’s Ark, the mother’s womb. And later on, we are born and start developing a connection with this environment as with the Upper Mother (Ima Ilaa): We receive through it the influence of Aba ve-Ima and even higher.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/2011 Preparation for the WE! Convention

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