The whole of reality is divided into three parts: me, the spiritual spark inside of me, not letting me be at peace and wanting to discover another reality, and the world surrounding me.

The world around me is divided into people who are close to or distant from me, inanimate nature, vegetation, and animals. Behind all of that, there stands yet another, higher force. For now, I perceive the whole of the reality as foreign, not related to me. Yet, all of this are parts of me that I do not perceive due to the separation that occurred in my consciousness and feeling.

It is as if I had been given an injection of painkiller into my arm and as a result it completely lost feeling and I don’t feel that it is mine. It could be cut off and I would not even notice, so powerful is the anesthetic.

This is how I perceive the whole of the world as if it doesn’t belong to me. And the work is to fight against this anesthetic, against this feeling.

This is intentional because if I think that this world does not belong to me, as if it has been anesthetized, I can turn from my egoism and relate to it altruistically, bestowing, as if to someone else. I can learn to love it.

I do not need to develop love towards myself; I love myself egoistically anyway. However, now I can learn to love others who are separated from me by the means of this anesthetic, this illusion of separation. After all, love is a quality of the Creator, not the quality of creation.

By the means of this separation, the Creator gives us the opportunity to receive a quality, which is not characteristic to us by nature and does not belong to us. We don’t understand what love is at all. But when I try to learn to love those who are outside of me as I do myself, meaning, to relate to my neighbor the way I do to myself, this is called love.

I am working on it against my egoism. This is a special force inside of me that constantly resists it. Thus, there is an opposition of two forces acting in two different directions. Desire attracts pleasure towards itself, but above it is a screen (the force of my resistance), which pushes this pleasure away and is ready to give it upwards.

And then, from the interaction between these two forces, I can understand what it is to truly love someone else rather than my own child, my own little dog, or my own body.

And as I develop more, my hatred towards my neighbors constantly grows, but I develop the force of love above it. It is called love only if it rises above the hatred. As it is said: “Love covers all transgressions.” Due to the collision of the two opposite qualities, the creation is able to obtain the quality of the Creator. Otherwise, it would be impossible and we would remain inside of the nature with which we were created.

However, if we want to be creations (Nivraim), meaning, independent personalities outside (Bar) of the Creator, and at the same time, to reach His qualities and the high state, then we are obliged to build such a resisting mechanism inside of us. There will always be two opposing forces functioning inside of it: the force of the desire to enjoy and the desire to bestow that we build above our egoism by ourselves, love above hatred.
[79576]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/1/12, Writings of Rabash

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In order to understand what prayer is, we have to rely on our previous experience and imagine a state opposite to Holiness, in which a person feels that he is dead. This means that he feels envy, ambition, a desire to control, and the ordinary desires of the ego for food, sex, and family. He feels that he has become enslaved to these desires through which the rule of the upper force becomes apparent.

At the same time, he is aware that this state is opposite to bestowal, caring about others and about the Creator, which has to be above all the worries and the calculations regarding himself, his relatives, and everything that has nothing to do with spirituality.

The goal of creation is the revelation of the Creator to the created beings. If a person chooses this goal as his mission for which he is willing to work, as it is written, “as an ox to the burden and as a donkey to the load,” in order to become the link that conveys and connects, to be the smallest agent who receives no reward, in that case it means that he turns to the Creator with the right prayer. He doesn’t even know that he is the one who brings about the revelation, and what is more, he doesn’t want any reward for that and is satisfied with having been given the opportunity to work without a reward.

This attitude is revealed in us thanks to the influence of the Light in different states, and by that, we begin to respect and value the darkness more. The more contradictory the states revealed in a person, the sharper his clarifications, thoughts, and feelings become, from which he can form his request to the Creator to be saved.

Every prayer stems from despair, from having fallen under the control of egoistic thoughts about oneself, instead of thinking about the revelation of the Creator to the created beings, about the “good and benevolent.” If a person aims correctly, he attains a state in which all of his desire works only for the revelation of the Creator in the vessels of the created beings, of Malchut, Shechina (Divinity).

This is called the prayer of eighteen blessings: nine degrees of the Direct Light and nine degrees of the Returning Light. Thus, a person reaches a true prayer.
[80177]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/12, Shamati #113

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At yesterday’s seminar we had a general, collective opportunity in all the groups all over the world to rise above our heavy sensation. We were pinned down by this heaviness and it was difficult for us to connect and rise in our mind and heart.

We felt that we couldn’t do it. We were missing the necessary intensity of feeling and clarity of thinking, and that is a wonderful state for our work, which we have to enter for one moment in order to feel it. Yet we must know in advance that we are now experiencing this heavy sensation and will discern it in order to immediately rise above it.

Thus, I am experiencing these sensations that pass through my mind and heart: dullness of feeling, dimness of thought and consciousness, and now I rise above all of this. I don’t care what I now feel; above it I want to build a completely new state which is not based on my animate, earthly mind and feelings, but is related to the higher state, spirituality, bestowal.

This means that I will receive completely new instruments of perception and desire, which are above me and completely do not depend on me. I use other’s desires, not my own, but thoughts that are foreign to me, meaning those that belong to others, so that through them I will bestow to the Creator and to them. Then I don’t have any problems since I am not closed inside of myself, but I rise above my egoistic perception.

This heavy feeling came precisely in order to show us whether or not we can rise and fill the world with Light, whether we can give something to humanity. The sensation suited the topic of the seminar precisely. It was a complete package; everything was arranged perfectly from above.

Our groups should have connected together as much as possible, above this entire sensation of heaviness, and thought about our influence on the world according to the topic of the seminar.

Women found a wonderful answer to the question of how we should give to the world and how the world should connect to us, through the example of a mother who breastfeeds her baby. This is a very precise example because is reflects the transition from the round Sefirot (Igulim) to straight desires (Yosher).

That is, we rise above our desires and thoughts and find a new vessel thanks to our unity. When every person comes out of himself and becomes included in others, he comes out of his thoughts and sensations and acquires new desires and reason in which he is not limited by anything at all. This is the form in which we advance.

But some people get immersed in their sensation of bitterness and darkness and suffer because of it instead of turning it upside down and transforming it to Light through their work, ascending above the darkness. A person should ask: why does he prefer to suffer? Does he really love suffering so much? This is stupid and results from our pride, our inability to rise above ourselves.

Or maybe you don’t understand that your spiritual vessel is not inside of you, but above you? And that all of these difficult sensations in the heart and mind are meant to help you ascend. The general force of the group must awaken you and help you do this, so why aren’t you using it? And the teacher tells you that you have to ascend. Don’t you understand that, or don’t you hear it?

But in any case, this is a good study. This heaviness is simply a gift from above, corresponding precisely to the chosen seminar topic. This is how we are being shown how easily we could rise above it, but we weren’t able to. And all of it is due to insufficient value of the environment, lack of importance, and the need to rise above this sensation.

This only shows that the quality of bestowal to which I ascend is less important to me than the sensation in my own stomach. First of all I want to feel good myself, and only then am I ready to ascend higher. Look at how egoistic this condition is.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/11/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: My exertion belongs to corporeal life and not to spiritual life. How can I ask the Light to change that?

Answer: Our desires change if we yearn for connection; we reach bestowal, and through bestowal, we reach the revelation of the Creator in order to bring Him contentment since it is He who wants to be revealed to us and not that we want to reveal Him by ourselves out of curiosity. It’s only possible to change something in us when the Light changes us. All the work is done through the Light; all the changes in us are performed from Above according to our request. But in order to reach the Light, to come in contact with it, to pass on our request and our deficiency to it so that it will be accepted, we have to operate through the group. In order to do that, our deficiency must be dressed in the intention to bestow.

We shouldn’t try to change or limit our desires forcefully; nothing will help except a prayer, a demand for the Light that Reforms. We have to put all our heart into this prayer. You won’t be more spiritual if you stop eating, breathing, or enjoying life; you won’t change your attributes by that.

The point is not to change mechanical actions that are performed by the arms or legs and not to use high language, but to change our inner attributes, which only the Light that created them can do. Therefore, we only have to know how to demand these changes! This is possible only if we get together and build a collective desire in the group through which we can turn to the Light with a demand.

The demand that is formed within this collective desire is the one that will be accepted. After all, the Light is in absolute rest, and to the extent that we reach an equivalence of form with It, we summon its action. It depends on the intensity by which we demand it in the group.

This force is abundant, but everything depends on us, the users. The user must include many foreign and strange desires of the friends in the group, which until now weren’t connected by anything. However, they are ready to connect in order to attain the upper one and so their attempts to connect are perceived as a demand from the upper one to connect them.

It turns out that our only request is in connection, and thanks to the connection all our attributes will be corrected. You can’t decide to be a little more generous or more of a saver. You don’t understand which attributes you need. Ask for one thing only—to connect with the friends into one collective desire so that all your attributes will be corrected in this connection. This is the only thing you can ask for and this is the only request that is answered and for which there is a correction.
[80166]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/08/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What is a reincarnation?

Answer: I am in the desire to receive and discover the shattered Reshimot (reminiscences), which means I feel that my connection with the environment and the Creator are shattered. So I make efforts to connect with the environment in order to become a suitable vessel for the Creator, for the Light.

Suppose by working above my shattered desire, I asked and attained the influence of the Light that corrected my connection with the shattered vessels that are near me, and we connected and attained a greater compatibility to the Light. Now the vessel that has been corrected by me is filled with the Light of Nefesh. Thus I have fulfilled the shattered desire that was revealed to me. This means that I have lived one lifetime and have performed a correction.

Now the next level is revealed to me. The previous desire dies, I don’t need it anymore. The Light that comes out of the previous spiritual Partzuf and is revealed in the next Reshimo is greater and more advanced. This means that it’s even more shattered! But with the experience I have from the previous life, I already know how to correct it. Therefore, I continue to advance and to correct myself.

I have to connect the shattered vessels that are even more opposite from one another and I have to ask the Light to connect us. Thus one life passes after another until I reach my complete correction. At that time, the shattered Reshimot cease to be evoked and revealed since I have corrected the whole shattering, meaning that I have been through all my lives. These lives have nothing to do with our corporeal body that lives like an animal. It’s only similar to an animal since our life symbolizes the advancement of the desire to receive.

In contrast to inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature, we are special animals in which the desire to receive constantly changes and eventually reaches a dead end, which we feel today. We suddenly realize that it isn’t a life and that we don’t understand where we are headed. The sufferings oblige us to start asking about the meaning of life, about its purpose and root. In the desire that develops on the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels, there is already a beginning of a new yearning that obliges us to ask about what there is on the level above me.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/08/12, Writings of Rabash

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When we aspire directly to the Creator, we study Torah. In other words, we study the actions of the Light, which corrects us.

With regard to that it is said, “From Your actions I will know You.” When we study the Creator’s actions, we begin to understand and attain Him. As a result we come to adhesion with Him.

To study Torah means to study that what the Light is doing within us. Ultimately, when a person reads, he should feel right away as the Light performs changes within him. A transformation comes out from every word, from every letter. After all, these letters, these symbols of spiritual properties, are built by Kabbalists.

When a person reads them, he can see how within they act and correct him from receiving to bestowal. With every word, the person notices changes within himself. This is the way he reveals the actions of the Creator and from these actions the Creator Himself becomes revealed to him.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/10, The Zohar

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Question: How can we fight a feeling of heaviness?

Answer: When a person feels heaviness from the sensation of darkness, obstacles, disturbances on the path, and suffering, everything depends on how much he can awaken himself and in every obstacle coming in any form see its spiritual meaning, spiritual details, so as to pray specifically about them.

One needs to imagine correct spiritual properties opposite the material properties that become revealed now. After all, everything that seems evil to me is various manifestations of evil that become revealed within me, my ego, my desires. I hate one person, I envy the other, the third irritates me—I perform all these evaluations, both positive and negative, only relative to myself.

But can I now turn all these details over and begin to collect all of them into a single opposite field of relationships, desires, and thoughts? And then from their confrontation I will understand how I can turn to the Creator, to the Light, so that it will give me faith, the force of bestowal.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/2012, Shamati #113

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All the vessels can be filled only by each other and by bestowing upon one another. To the extent that you bestow on upon others, you bestow upon the Creator. The more you can connect with others, the more you connect with the Creator. This is called: “I dwell within my people” because if you connect with others, you find the Creator there.

Therefore, “Love thy friend as thyself is the great rule of the Torah” since by bestowing upon your friend, you bestow upon the Creator. It is the only thing you should do, and there is nothing more than that. To bestow upon the Creator refers to the general vessel and the general Light that fills it. With regard to others, we perform individual correction that cannot be fulfilled through them if you don’t intend to bring contentment to the Creator, meaning the general vessel.

We cannot perceive the Creator in any other way but through the general force of bestowal that is revealed in the general vessel, in the general desire. If we want to avoid the bestowal upon others within the general network, it prevents us from doing the right thing and it cuts us off from reality since all of reality is based only on the connection among us. There, the general bestowal called the upper Light, the general law called “the Creator,” is revealed.

Therefore it says “Love thy friend as thyself is the great rule of the Torah.”
[79998]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/07/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: “It turns out that he regresses the world, as they said, “One sinner destroyeth much good.” Because he could not overcome his petty lust, he pushed the spirituality of the whole world backwards.”

Baal HaSulam tells us about the general system in which we exist. A person thinks that he lives in a world that is made up of the inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature, and also seven billion people. He doesn’t understand that it is actually the Creator who presents Himself to him this way.

In another place, Baal HaSulam says that a person who causes his friend sorrow is actually causing the Creator sorrow. It is as if we are looking at a kind of “display”: the Creator is depicted to us in the form of the inanimate, the vegetative, the animate and humans who are around us so that we will respond to them and with their help, together with them, we will be able to reach the goal. He has prepared all this for us to ease our way to the goal.

If we all shared one desire to receive that is not divided into parts, facing one Light, that is not divided into an “Inner Light” and a “Surrounding Light” and to many other Lights and other influences, we would never be able to correct ourselves. Our desire to receive is now external as a result of the shattering of the vessels and is presented to us in external forms that are opposite from us. On the whole, I hate the others instead of loving them. If the desire were inside me, I would love the others and fill them, but this way I want to steal from them and to empty them by filling only what now seems to me as myself.

So we are facing a very special kind of work—in our distorted perception, in darkness, and in blindness, we can work as if we are already corrected.

I don’t love, I hate others’ desire to receive and I only want to steal from it, and now I have to bring it inside me. The hatred and the repulsion that motivate me aren’t really aimed at others but at my desire to receive that is presented to me as someone else. I am shown this false display of my internality, which seems to be outside myself, thus helping me to relate to my internality in a corrected spiritual way.

If my desire were felt as my own, I would love it and want to feel it, but now I hate it, reject it, and want to empty it. This helps me form the right spiritual attitude. Even without trying to change my attitude to others, I only need to change my understanding of the picture and to acknowledge the fact that what seems to be outside me is my essence.

Thus it is clear that the upper Providence is playing a special game with us, by working with others we work with our desire to receive. The hatred and the repulsion create the right conditions and only the “fact” that this desire isn’t mine, brings me down in the meantime from the spiritual height of the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) to the corporeal depth of this world.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/07/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: How can I establish an attitude to the negative aspects  of life, despite the natural feelings that they evoke?

Answer:  If you were incorporated in a group you would approach everything correctly, in every state, on every level. You have to subdue yourself towards the group, to see the friends as the greatest in our generation and to connect with them in order to create the collective force of mutual guarantee. By this collective force, and not on your own, you should begin to clarify things. This is already the power of bestowal, the power that is similar to the Light in its attribute. This should be the starting point. If I start the way by myself, in what direction do I head? Back to my garbage? No, I need to turn to the Light by being next to it.

Question: But why can’t we finish the work in one go?

Answer: If everything were so simple, what would you do in life? The prophets say: “On that day the transgression of Jacob was wanted and it was gone.” This means that we will look for transgressions and won’t find them since when there is nothing to correct, it is also a great problem. Love cannot exist without some friction. It is always that way.

Eventually, if I connect with the friends correctly, everything ends here, since by that I feel and perceive correctly everything that is going on and relate correctly to my state, to the Light, and to the correction. The main thing for me is to stabilize myself within the group. This approach is right for everyone, both veteran and new students.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/06/12,“The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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