Question: How do we constantly remain on the “spiritual trajectory,” meaning at the point of making a decision that the spiritual space and unity come before material achievements?

Answer: As soon as we succeed in creating this kind of connection between us, “a place for revealing the Creator,” it immediately fades. This is done so that we are able to make this decision again and again. Every moment should be the “Beginning.” And what helps a person to make this constant choice is only a strong environment which allows him to maintain a connection (see Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”).

It is impossible to maintain this decision on your own for longer than a moment. We need to bring ourselves to a correct society, like putting a seed into soil, and receive the realization of the importance of the goal from it. Then you will be able to unite the points of decisions, forming them into a straight line to the goal.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/9/10, “Rosh Hashanah”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Spiritual Aiming Device
Laitman.com Post: The Fast Road To The Spiritual World
Laitman.com Post: Unification With The Group Leads Us To The Creator

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

All our corporeal properties are related to the animate level of existence, but we have to build a human within ourselves, which means to become “similar to the Creator” (Adam) and exist in bestowal. Bestowal, however, can be realized only in the group, in love of friends, in order to attain the Creator. Through our relationships, we create a desire similar to the Creator: the place where the Creator is revealed.

Hence, all the personal qualities and capacities that are embodied by our corporeal form don’t have any relation to spirituality. In regard to spirituality, I work solely with the point in the heart and should disregard the rest of my “earthly” properties. I cannot succeed in my quest for the Creator through them for they are secondary, and I strive to work “above them,” always preferring bestowal to reception, “faith above reason.”

The essence is the point in the heart. I must connect it with the others, with the friends. So, now I have to make the correct decision and determine that I want to reach success not in the material world, but in the unity of the points in the heart. It is the place where the Creator will be revealed as soon as it becomes similar to the Creator in the very least.

I have to constantly ponder this question. Only this determines how successful my spiritual advancement is.

Hence, this point is regarded as the Beginning of Change (Rosh Hashanah). It is the decision which should always signify a new beginning.

As a matter of fact, the line of trajectory we are moving by consists of multiple points. A spiritual path is a sequence of dots, and each of them has a “nip,” a “gap” in motion between the previous and the following points. Thus they create a single spiritual trajectory line.

In order to continue moving along with the others, in the same direction, in each point of the trajectory, I have to be totally opposite to the previous and the future states of existence. Only then can we adhere to this line of trajectory.

Therefore, in each point, at each moment of my life, I must make up my mind for the Beginning of Change within me.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/9/10, “Rosh Hashanah”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: A New Year: A New Step On The Spiritual Ladder
Laitman.com Post: One Can Not Walk Alone
Laitman.com Post: Ascend To A Higher Dimension

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work - 2 Comments →

Malchut wants to become similar to Bina and achieves this through Zeir Anpin (ZA). ZA is a model for her. Her being able to become similar to ZA indicates her ability to be similar to Bina.

The same applies to us. If I want to become like the Creator, I have to enter the group, become its integral part, participate together with everyone, influence everyone, and receive their influence in return. In such a mixing, in the connection between us, I acquire a new form of unification with others. Then the form that clothes me resembles the Creator.

In other words, if I clothe the group onto myself as if it were a garment, I, thus, am similar to the Creator.

From the 2rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/7/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Do You Wish To Enter?
Laitman.com Post: Unification Of The Souls = Equivalence To The Creator
Laitman.com Post: The Main Witness

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator, Zohar - 1 Comment →

Question: If a person doesn’t exist apart from others, then why do each of us have a sensation that reality is created for him and that the Creator relates to him personally?

Answer: This is a degree of exclusiveness that each of us possesses. It comes to us from the Creator and constitutes our roots that make us different from each other. It obligates each of us to implement our uniqueness, as it is true that “the world is created for me.” This is what every person has to enunciate and validate to himself. However, it should not be done at the “expense” of others, but rather for the sake of others.

I am the one who corrects this world; other people are only parts of me. This fact obligates me to treat others as though they depend on me. I have to unite with them through the power of my love, and I am the one who defines it.

When my point connects with their points, I become their “head,” meaning the head of a body that is called the “common soul.” It is me who is making decisions, creating connections, and filling them with the Creator’s Light because for them I represent the source or the Creator. There is somebody else, and it’s you. You are the one who does the same thing in connecting other people (including me) to you. You, too, become a head of our universal body, but it’s a different body because, in your case, it is identified by your proper attitude to others.

Thus, each of us is a unique personality and doesn’t encumber others, but rather complements them. You sense the Creator’s personal attitude, but He can relate to you only through the group. Similarly, you relate to Him only through the group.

The Creator is that which is revealed in the connection between us. The Upper Light settles specifically within the desires of bestowal and the connection between all souls. When all properties of bestowal unite, the vessel for the revelation of the Creator (a network of bestowal) divulges itself.

The desire itself underwent the First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph) and stopped receiving. Receiving is possible only through the bonds that connect all desires at a place where a screen and the Reflected Light are present.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/5/10, “What is the Matter of My Making A Pact in the Work”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Raising The Whole World
Laitman.com Post: Revealing The Light Of Infinity Between Us
Laitman.com Post: Stem Cells Of The Soul

Filed under: Collective Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

Spiritual Simulator: Questions of the Day

Filed under: Group Work - No Comments →

Question: How do you reconcile the notion of Private Providence and one’s individual prayer with the notion of general spiritual laws that every person must comply with?

Answer: You will not understand this until you stop separating yourself from the general system. The “particular” is a type of connection between you and the system of souls, which stems from your state. Meanwhile, the “general” is the basic condition of the group.

A person can never receive anything for himself. Indeed, on his own he has no capacity in which to receive spirituality. A person’s individual spiritual capacity exists outside of him. It is in the desires of others that he is able to attach to himself with the help of the Upper Light, like a mother who lives within her child’s desires.

Aside from the desires of others, every one of us has only a “point,” their individual root. What can you do with a point? Only connect it to all the other parts of its soul: the desires of others.

This matter of connecting yourself to the general Kli is what we call Private Providence. The notion of “myself” as an individual (a point) does not exist in reality! This point feels itself only with respect to the environment, whether egoistically (our world) or altruistically (the spiritual world). Without the environment it cannot feel anything, even itself.

Therefore, our development relates exclusively to the environment, and our freedom of will lies only in choosing a better environment. After all, my environment today will be me tomorrow.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/5/10, “What is the Matter of My Making A Pact in the Work”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Only Together Will We Succeed
Laitman.com Post: How To Build A “Spiritual Resistor”
Laitman.com Post: A Rock Separated From The Mountain

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

How can we unite with each other? It is possible only if a person with his desire exists in the friend and the friend within him. Everyone has to absorb the desire of the other and work with it, and in doing so, they connect. Since their desire is aimed at the same goal, through their mutual work they create a common force of aspiration to go forth. This force guarantees their progress and is called Arvut (mutual guarantee).

Connecting occurs when I take part of your desire and experience it as my own, and all my desires serve to fulfill it. Moreover, since your desire is to reach the goal, it turns out that I lead you to it while you lead me. Thus, our desires unite in the common goal. Hence, it is written: “Make your desire as His, and He will make His as yours.”

This is a criterion to verify the extent of our connectedness. The distance between us amounts to 125 degrees (steps), 125 parts of my egoistic desire. But gradually, correcting it through the actions “for your sake,” I come closer to you in my work for bestowal.

That is what is called “love the other as you love yourself.” In other words, I employ your desire to annul mine before it and in so doing, I correct my desire. My desire remains but because I have gone such a distance to reach you, I have made my desire bestowing. Nothing has changed; I’ve only added the intention. And the distance between us disappeared for I annihilated it with my intention!

And what does this “other” want? He wants to attain adhesion with the Creator, just like you do. So, there is only one thing you need to help him with: to become one with the Creator (together with you). This single intention connects us all as one.

Hence we say that we are all in one boat, and it goes in one direction. The closer I come to you, the closer I come to the Creator.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/3/10, Shamati #50

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Condition For Escaping Egoism
Laitman.com Post: The Spiritual Root Of Humanity
Laitman.com Post: Infinity Is Boundless Unification

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work - 2 Comments →

We need to feel our opposition to the Light and bring ourselves to its state. If we don’t draw the Light to ourselves, we feel suffering since it feels bitter to sense that we are opposite to the Creator. Therefore, in order to give us an opportunity to develop properly, we are brought into a system called a “Kabbalistic group.” Instead of existing in a vacuum and not knowing how to develop in the attempts to become similar to the Creator, I find myself in a group.

I can work on uniting with the group, with others who aspire to the same goal as me. Instead of focusing on something invisible, being in a void, and not knowing where the suffering comes from or what’s going on, I work on unification. And our connection solves all the problems!

How can unification of the souls substitute for similarity to the Creator? Originally, in the World of Infinity we were one soul of Adam. Later, we broke into many parts, individual souls, and instead of the World of Infinity we began to feel our (broken) world. Through the breaking, the Light created qualities in us that are opposite to it, and the soul became opposite to the Light.

However, if we correct the breaking together and reunite, our action lends itself to the revelation of the Light, becoming like it. Instead of equalizing ourselves to the Light which is concealed, we equalize ourselves to the desires which we feel and understand. It seems to us as though we are being summoned, like good children, to unite and annul our egoism. But by doing so we reveal the Light in the unification of our desires because this is where the Light concealed itself: inside the broken Kelim.

It turns out that the opportunity to work in the group is the most practical and real application of Kabbalah. We perform actions that are available to us while, in essence, we reveal the Light that is situated beyond the breaking. In this manner we clarify our contrast to the Light, become equal to it, and unite. The Light and the vessel merge into one whole, and we return to the World of Infinity.

We reveal 620 states or degrees that separate us from each other and from the Light. By doing so we discover that we are opposite to the Light to the extent of 620 degrees and thereby understand the Light of Infinity 620 times better. We thus reveal the common soul and the entire Light that fills it: the Creator.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/3/10, Shamati #50

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Point Of Salvation
Laitman.com Post: The Main Witness
Laitman.com Post: Desire, And The Light Will Come

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work - 1 Comment →

Spiritual Simulator: Questions of the Day

Filed under: Group Work - No Comments →

There are two states in the advancement toward the spiritual goal. The first state is when a person has the sensation, the force, and the support of the group and the Creator. A person feels the importance of the property of bestowal, and this pushes him to draw closer to the Creator.

He has the sensation and the desire; the Creator shows him that it’s worthwhile to work on the spiritual goal. A person feels that there is a reward, meaning that he does not depend on faith: the property of bestowal within him. The sensation rouses love of friends and of the Creator.

In such a state, a person makes a covenant about love of friends and the Creator forever, for the future. What is this covenant with? It can’t be the Creator because in a state of descent, when one will distance himself from the Creator, he won’t feel His closeness, and the Creator won’t bind him.

That’s why the covenant has to be made with the group that can be felt in a state of descent as well. Through the group, we reach the agreement with the Creator: To always go by the path of bestowal to the Creator and the group. The group is a guarantee of the covenant. By making a covenant the entire group pledges to support each other and always hold the intention to bestow. They receive the Creator’s help to the extent of their connection.

The second state comes after some time, when the state of excitement and connection is replaced by indifference, inability to feel any importance of the goal, the Creator, or the reward for a good attitude toward the friends and the Creator. A person is unable to think about love, connection, and bestowal.

A) If a person does not receive support from the group, he falls, thinking that the Creator is unimportant and that there is no fulfillment or reward. He might leave the path altogether.

B) If the connection with the group awakens and attracts him, he is unable to drop everything and remembers the covenant that he has made. In a state of descent, the importance of bestowal vanishes since the reward disappears. And here a mutual guarantee, covenant, and connection with the group have to come to one’s aid.

In this way, a person returns to the covenant, to the state of goodness, love, and connection. He remembers that he has to go by faith above reason, above his current state of indifference as though the sensation that once gave him strength does exist and is even stronger!

In this way, a person wants to go by “faith above reason” (bestowal over reward). He then understands that he can receive strength from the Creator. And this brings him to a prayer.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/5/10, “What is the Matter of My Making A Pact in the Work”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: One Step At A Time
Laitman.com Post: The Inner Work Of A Kabbalist: “Love Of Friends” – 5.24.10
Laitman.com Post: Faith Above Reason
Kabbalah Moments: To Learn The Descent From The Ascent

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →