Good Environment – 11.04.10
Posted on November 4th, 2010
Question: Rabash writes that only when a person has done everything within his means will he turn to the Creator for help. But what about thoughts that I haven’t done everything and don’t deserve to ascend?
Answer: Nobody has done all they could. Keep making efforts and while you do, you will see that this instruction is accomplished.
The Klipa (shell) will always tell you that you haven’t done enough: “You know what, wait until the next Convention.” And you must answer it: “Stop promising me tomorrows, I want it here and now!”
Who will inspire you to respond like that? The environment will. It will multiply a person’s strength, when he bows his head and unifies with others.
[25533]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/1/10, “And the Children Racketed Within Her”
Question: It is written, “Penny by penny, they accumulate into a great treasure.” Does each person put in his “penny”? Or is it our collective “penny” on the path to the goal?
Answer: A person puts together these “pennies” or small desires that he receives from all the friends. By uniting with them and aspiring to enter the mutual guarantee, he acquires aspirations from everyone and they unite inside him, giving him strength for the path.
However, even this is still insufficient. I have the strength, but I don’t have the “material.” This “material” comes through in small portions. Egoism is revealed in me piece by piece, and I overcome it to the degree these portions appear.
Here too, “penny by penny,” they accumulate into a great sum.
[25888]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/4/10, Writings of Rabash
Question: How can the environment bring me to something other than my own egoism, when it itself is also comprised of egoists?
Answer: But you yourself choose the environment. The Creator has put a single desire and a common aspiration into a group of people, and He has gathered them here. They neither looked for nor needed one another, but He brought them together. They do not know where life will take them, but they differ from any other environment through their sparks and spiritual aspirations, which the time has come to correct.
I unite with my friends in order to establish a connection with their sparks, and this is the essence, this is my environment. One is pleasant looking, another is not so much, the third is quick-tempered, and the fourth a scholar, but I do not pay attention to the exterior forms because all of them pertain to the beastly properties of our world.
Instead, I look at the sparks that have ignited in my friends and are connected among them. These sparks are the consequence of the screen that connects us, and as I permeate further, I arrive at the place where it mends us together the same way.
Everything depends on the depth of immersion in our common “pie.” Its upper layer is the exterior, superficial view. And then I begin to look further inside. After all, an inner unity is now being manifested among my friends. I was brought to them so I would arrive at the essence, starting with the exterior impressions.
I can find this connection in any part of the world, and conceptually, I should not need to travel anywhere. All people are interconnected, but not all are already experiencing this desire to reveal their unity.
And so I have been pushed into this layer of humanity, which now needs to be corrected. That is, this layer has to reveal the common interconnection, and the Upper Light or the Creator within it. Now I try to discern this system as fast as possible, I am ready to be in it.
The mutual guarantee is the law of this common system, and the correction becomes revealed even more deeply. Nothing else exists; we are simply submerging ourselves deeper into this “pie,” the essence of the exterior images, the root of everything that happens.
I am always directed inward in order to find and strengthen the connection between us. During the Convention we concentrate on this simple intention.
[25536]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/1/10, “And the Children Racketed Within Her”
Question: What is required of me at the Convention? Should I be writhing in agony regarding my own birth or that of my friend’s?
Answer: Neither. Let everyone care only about tuning into the environment. This way one nullifies himself and becomes inspired with a friend’s desire. When every person does this, we automatically enter a deeper layer of our relationship.
Imagine a “pie” with many layers. On top I see the Convention participants, beneath them I see the friends, and even lower I see united sparks. With my eyes, I want to penetrate as deep as possible into the net that connects us, stretching across all the layers into Infinity. And this only depends on me.
One can jump impatiently or stand quietly, but regardless of what I do externally, the main thing is to concentrate as much as possible on the desire to reveal our inner connection which surely exists between all the creatures. Once I reveal it, I reveal everything in it.
For that I reject myself, striving to submerge even deeper in order to become a part of the common net, blending into it. This intention, this inner concentration is enough for me to begin to feel reality, the authenticity of the collective unity, more clearly.
In our world, we observe the consequences of a global interconnection, similar thoughts, and phenomena that appear in different people and different places. But all of this is the consequence; it is the “tip of the iceberg.” And yet there, deep down, is an unbreakable iron connection that binds us.
This connection is what we must reveal. The aspiration is enough. The rest will be revealed in it: the desires and the revelations that will lead us inward.
[25544]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/1/10, “And the Children Racketed Within Her”
Question: How do I know for sure what controls me at the moment: the desire to receive or the desire to bestow?
Answer: It depends on what environment you are attracted to. There are no other criteria to check this with. Our starting point is the desire to receive pleasure. With the help of the correct environment, I begin to analyze the situation and discern my egoistic intention.
Before I did not notice the power of the evil inclination within me, but now I have changed the criteria for checking. There is no Creator in front of me. Therefore, I check myself according to the environment, and according to its values I determine what inclination is in control within me: the good or the evil one.
Perhaps my desire to reach the spiritual goal is burning within me, but my family and former friends tell me, “You are confused. What did you find there? What did you gain? This will have a bad ending. It is better to come with us, we enjoy our lives.” From their point of view, I am immersed in evil, trying to reach a goal that comes from the evil inclination.
Everything is relative, and everyone defines for himself who controls it. Therefore, if you want to judge from the position of the Creator, you should calibrate yourself with a good environment, the group, and take it as a benchmark.
[25540]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/1/10, “And the Children Racketed Within Her”
We undergo four exiles, one after the other. They root in the four phases of the collective soul, HaVaYaH (Yod, Key, Vav, Key). Long before, in the World of Infinity, the common will to receive was created in four phases. Hence, all evolution and correction occurs in the same four phases.
Until we reach the final stage, Malchut, we must undergo the alterating expansion and disappearance of the Light from the desire, between the degrees, which repeats four times. When the Light enters, it is redemption (from its absence or darkness), and when it departs, it is exile (disappearance of the Light).
The presence of the Light in the vessel is regarded as the presence of the Creator in the creature or revelation of the Creator. Therefore, redemption (clothing of the Light in the vessel or soul or desire) is always followed by exile of the Light, its departure. There is no growth without this, as it is written, “Getting filled with the Light and becoming empty makes the desire suitable for achieving the goal (equivalence to the Creator).”
This is why even the first Kabbalists knew what humanity was going to experience. Abraham used to ask the Creator, “How can I know that my descendants will inherit this land?” When he received the answer that they would go into exile, Abraham felt contented for he knew that after four exiles and four redemptions, everybody would come to the final correction.
We are now at the threshhold of exiting the last exile, in the system of the fourth level which contains all the previous exiles and redemptions. We only have to perform the final, complete redemption (of the entire Malchut) which is very near.
However, to reach redemption, we must experience exile. Long before exile comes, we need to contain within, in the negative form, the complete form of this future redemption, the form of the corrected world, meaning that we must expect that it will come not only to Israel, but to all humanity.
For the first time in human history, Israel (our world group) acts as a conduit for the Upper Light, and we must unify for the sake of the correction of the world. Redemption means being in full adhesion with the Creator, the property of bestowal.
[25600]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/1/10, “This is for Judah”
Question: The Convention is our next state. What do we need to do now in order to come to it with the correct desire or demand?
Answer: At present, we still need the feeling of lack, aspiration, and longing, just as before an anticipated meeting and expectation of a joyous event. We need the desire to unfold the connection between us so that it would open in all its might and, within it, the force of bestowal, the Creator, the Light that fills this collective soul, would emerge.
Right now, we are preparing ourselves for this revelation. However, we should not seek the lack itself. Rather, we should constantly think about the desired state. As a result of this seeking, from my ideas about unity, I will start feeling that I don’t possess it. Because of this, the void (the desire) will appear within me. The Light creates the desire!
A person who doesn’t seek a good state of existence will not feel what he is lacking. After all, when you seek it, the Surrounding Light of that state affects you and increases your desire for it. You will yearn for the good states, for love and unification, and, accordingly, you will discover the opposite states: rejection and hate. In fact, we all act in two opposing systems: reception and bestowal, the left and the right lines.
Man is the reversed imprint of the Creator, the form of egoistic desire. All the Lights that affect us only turn our form inside out, bringing us to the authentic form from “for the sake of reception” to “for the sake of bestowal.” This is what the Light does with me. But in the beginning, I always discover the reverse or egoistic form.
If I aspire to the good form, then, inevitably, the descent will come, and I will discover hate and resentment. However, there is no need to dive into the depth of evil and make discernments. This egoistic form will emerge on its own and will force me to study it. Inasmuch as I make efforts to get rid of it, will I get to know all its details in order to transform it into bestowal.
[25603]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/1/10, “This is for Judah”
Once, there was a belief that it is the heart that pumps the blood through the entire body. But after some studies, it was discovered that this is incorrect.
It was believed that our heart needed to be an enormous and powerful “pump” in order to move the blood through the entire organism. After all, there are extremely thin capillary vessels in the organism, and we thought that only a huge, powerful pump would be able to pump through them, and only under the condition that the walls of the blood vessels will be able to withstand the pressure.
However, later the scientists discovered that the heart only sets the speed and nothing more. The rest is done by the organism itself. There are valves in the circulatory system, in the entire “pipeline.” As the muscles contract, the capillaries open the valves and allow the blood to circulate in the necessary direction. By themselves, they operate like a pump.
In other words, this entire circulatory network activates itself. This is a live connection, and, essentially, it is precisely this connection and not the heart that supports the functioning of the body. The heart only manages the process; it sets the rhythm.
From this we need to understand that when it comes to the system of connection of the souls, the entire job is laid on us. It is we who must make the connection between us come alive by opening and closing the “valves” at the right time, creating “pressure” in the right places in order to move the Inner Light (the spiritual life energy) between us.
When we bring life into this system though our search, our inner work, it’s only then that we reveal the life force in it. Before our revelation, this entire system is a spiritually dead formation, “a drop of semen” which is still to develop.
This is why nothing becomes revealed in its complete form; nothing prepared can exist. There is only that which we enliven. And the main principle is cooperation, the mutual guarantee, just like in our physical body.
[25408]
From the Preparation to the Lesson 10/29/10
Question: How can I stop pursuing the pleasures of this world and acquire an interest in connecting with others?
Answer: The external “race” stops when we include ourselves in a group and start concentrating on its interests. Baal HaSulam and Rabash explain to us that in this world, we should only pursue our immediate needs. That doesn’t mean that we have to limit our requirements to plain biological necessities in our everyday life. The limitations concern mostly mass media.
If we need to get information for further dissemination of Kabbalah or for our professional advancement, then it really is mandatory for us. Nobody forbids us from listening and watching the mass media, nor demands that we isolate ourselves from the world. However, you have to understand how to choose the right information since it clearly affects us.
It is impossible to absorb something and, at the same time, manage to stay away from it. When you let the information flow through you, the impression stays. That’s why we have to protect ourselves from the wrong information. Otherwise, we expose ourselves to the whole world, and it “infiltrates” us.
Maintaining connections with other people is essential, but they have to be thoroughly calculated. The measure that we have to absorb in order to advance spiritually is called “necessary” or “essential.” Of course, no one suggest that you cloister in a monastery or go back to living in a cave, but at the same time, it is not good to expose yourself to the mess that the world around us produces.
In everything else, we have to stay under the right influence of our environment and study the authentic sources. With the correct intention and the help of the group, we will enhance our desire and will view our goal more clearly.
[25418]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/31/10, “The Need for Love of Friends”
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