My Spiritual Simulator – 09.26.10
Posted on September 26th, 2010
Spiritual Simulator: Questions of the Day
Spiritual Simulator: Questions of the Day
Baal HaSulam explains in the article “Arvut” that no one can attain the goal without help from one’s friends because otherwise a person won’t have the fuel, the “spirit of life.” A person on the spiritual path must arm himself with a great desire after revealing the breaking between us because the force of hatred between us lays bare the evil inclination. Even The Zohar talks about how the friends in Rabbi Shimon’s group revealed hatred, and only after that did they reach love, level by level, by means of the Light they evoked through mutual study.
The goal is also something we discover inside our interconnection. By gradually restoring the connection between us with the help of the Light, we reveal 125 levels until reaching unity with the Creator. Thus, we attain the Creator Himself, the force of the Light that Reforms. If, however, we don’t base everything on the revelation of the place of the breakage and its correction, then our actions will bear no connection to spirituality.
Indeed, we have just one contact with the spiritual world, and that is the place of the breakage of the connection between us. It is written, “I created the evil inclination.” This is what we have to find and reveal. That is why our entire work is devoted to discerning the quality of connection between the friends on the path to revealing the Creator: myself, the friends, and the Creator (or Israel, the Torah, and the Creator).
We are looking for a connection between us in which the Creator is concealed. This is the key that opens the door to Him. By correcting our attitude to our interconnection, we find the quality of bestowal and love, and that is how we reveal the Creator. This is the only way a friend can help a friend. This constitutes our only free action. All other acts are compulsory, puppet-like. We shouldn’t demand anything from each other besides the desire to help.
[21964]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/26/10, “They Helped Everyone His Friend”
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Mutual guarantee is a special space between us, our common desire. All spiritual revelations take place there. And if there is no such space, there is no common desire, but only our individual egoistic desires. We construct this common space to the degree that I annul myself and enter this collective desire, you annul and put yourself there as well, and so does everybody else. Otherwise, it does not exist!
The vessel into which we can receive the Light is not ready-made; we have to build it, we have to aspire to oneness. By cultivating our unity, from 0 to 125 degrees, we perceive, at each degree, a new picture, a greater revelation of the Creator. All “sacred” books (the Torah, The Zohar, etc.) tell us exactly about this: the degrees of the connection we create by turning our evil and rejection of each other into love and unity. Thus, the entire Torah is comprised of stories that describe how we unfold and correct the evil.
We feel our world in the “place of unification” as its absence; we feel our separation and not the Creator, the One. Yet, even this world resides in that very “place” between us with one difference: Here, we reveal the degree of our broken oneness and absence of the Creator.
Meanwhile, unity acts similar to a resistor which connects plus and minus. Inside it, my ego, my rejection of all others, is concealed. But above it, I make an effort to unite. By doing so, I create resistance between rejection and exertion. And the greater the difference, the resistance between them (“faith above reason”), the greater Light is revealed.
The same law applies to electronics and the spiritual world. Ultimately, all Nature consists of “plus” and “minus” or the forces of bestowal and reception. The only way to connect them together is through a resistor, which could be any receiver. This receiver is Adam that we are constructing: our soul.
Therefore, on one hand, we have the breaking force, and on the other, the force of our effort in creating unity. But it doesn’t annul the breaking; we unite exactly above it! As a result, we create a space where the Light that expands from the two lines, plus and minus, is able to work and start affecting us. Through this work, we build ourselves: “human reality.”
[21583]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/20/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot
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Spiritual Simulator: Questions of the Day
Question: What should I do if the Simulator doesn’t give me any inspiration or importance?
Answer: It doesn’t matter; the Simulator is the obligation. I don’t get any inspiration from the mutual guarantee, but I must realize it. You have to put efforts into it again and again. While you are investing in it, you are seemingly losing since you are taking care of it and giving everything to it from “yourself.”
This will continue until everything becomes connected to the extent that you are able to reveal the first spiritual degree. Then you will feel the efforts you have given not as a loss, but rather as a reward. But for the time being, this is really a loss: Your family, friends, and people who surround you look at you with astonishment, “What are you investing yourself into?”
You can not explain anything to them, although this will last until you receive a response for all your efforts. Therefore, we have to try to complete this process as soon as possible.
[21751]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/22/10, Shlavei Hasulam, Article 17, 1986
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You are not aimed at the goal if you are not looking at it through the group. The group is like a lens that collects all beams of sight and aims them at the target. Without it, you won’t be able to focus your eyes on the goal. Only in the group, in the collective relationship of the friends, will you be able to uncover the work of the Creator.
If we do not build a common area between us, a “common space” where only bestowal and our unity exist, we won’t have the "place" where the Creator can be revealed. I need at least one other person as the minimal number in a group is two persons. I decide to unite with the group and now I constantly think about it. In our union that we ourselves create, in the “common place,” everything The Zohar and the Torah are talking about is occurring. But if I am not connected with the others, I don’t have a place to reveal what’s described in The Zohar.
If I unite with the others, all the stories in the Torah, The Zohar, the Study of the Ten Sefirot, and the Talmud are solely about the types of our connection and what is revealed in it. Through my own actions aimed at a greater connection, I evoke the revelation of the Creator. This is called “Israel (I), the Torah (Kabbalistic texts, studies, and the group), and the Creator are one,” and I unify them from the beginning of my correction to its end.
It isn’t difficult at all to get concentrated in one point. If not, the aim immediately disappears, and you must focus anew. There are obstacles, and the challenge lies in focusing on the goal by way of unity.
First of all, we need to create a common space between us. And The Zohar will tell us what takes place in it, how to annul oneself in order to bring our unity to compete correction, and to reveal the Creator within it in accordance with the law of equivalence of form.
[21591]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/20/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot
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After going through many life cycles, a person reaches a point when he experiences the initial spiritual awakening – the point in the heart (Reshimo). It is comprised of two forces:
– Emptiness due to the futility of his transient, perishable life, and from the despair of not being able to find fulfillment in this world
– An inner “spark” that pushes him to some unknown place that’s beyond this world.
On one hand, the despair pulls him down, and on the other hand, the spark pulls him upward. Eventually a person chooses his route. These two forces as a whole cause a Reshimo to form inside him or a new direction in his existence.
This Reshimo brings him to a teacher and a group of people studying Kabbalah. After that he gradually realizes that only by uniting with other Reshimot that are similar to him will he be able to build, together with them, the force of bestowal that’s similar to the Creator. Therein lies his only freedom of choice in life and his only free action.
His success depends on how much he will be able to increase his spark with the help of the group in spite of all personal problems. If he increases it, then he will feel the need for faith (bestowal) and for others (the means). Everything is determined by how well he can receive (or absorb) the influence of the spiritual environment (the advice of his teacher and the general opinion of the group).
The environment is not just the group or friends, but the Shechina. The connection with them that I acquire is my connection with the Shechina, Malchut of the World of Atzilut, the common soul of Adam.
When the friends unite in order to annul their egoism and to attain the quality of bestowal, their unity evokes a reaction from the Shechina and they receive the Light of Correction (Ohr Makif) from it. That is how a person starts to interact with the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif), which brings him closer to revealing the quality of bestowal (faith) within, and the Inner Light (Ohr Pnimi) inside that quality.
All of our work comes down to increasing our desire for the quality of bestowal and increasing its importance; the way to do so is with the help of the right environment. It is impossible to learn to do this. It can only be done according to the verse, “We will do and we will hear.”
A person makes efforts to connect with the group even if he does not feel a need for it, and in response he receives support and a general necessity. It is a desire which the friends accumulate among each other – the need for faith or bestowal.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/21/10, “Who Testifies for Man”
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Spiritual Simulator: Questions of the Day
Spiritual Simulator: Questions of the Day
Question: Why is having a group so important for the study of Kabbalah?
Answer: The role of the Kabbalistic group is similar to that of family, friends, relatives, social security, and medical insurance in our life. If I’m in a tough situation, fall ill, or lose my job, there is a system that helps me in that weak moment.
This system of mutual support in spiritual development is called "mutual guarantee" (Arvut). The speed and ease of our advancement toward the goal – the revelation of the Creator – depend upon the strength of this system. It influences everyone, and its strength accumulates as a result of our common efforts.
Rabash writes: “We have gathered here to establish a society for all who wish to climb the degrees of man (Adam), and not remain as a beast.” When we make a joint decision to follow the method of Baal HaSulam, rise above our egoism, and reveal the Creator in the connection between us, we are already making an agreement.
We have to help each other to value the greatness of the goal and the Creator, seeing all the friends as the greatest in the generation, inspiring them with the greatness of the spiritual goal, and realizing our own insignificance. I guarantee to the friends that I will help with this, regardless of what state I am in. These are conditions of our agreement.
Following this, there can be two states:
1. Either I support the group in inspiration, power, unity, and the greatness of the Creator,
2. Or as soon as I become weak, they begin caring for me.
It’s like two communicating vessels. The moment a drop of water is removed from one of them, the water immediately flows into it from the other one, and the water levels always even out in them. The width or volume of each vessel does not matter: If they are connected, the water level will be the same in both.
This is how we are connected in the group. They give me strength, and I give strength to them. It’s impossible to advance without such a mutual guarantee.
[21435]
From the Lesson on Rabash’s Article, 9/17/10
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