It is written, “there is none else besides Him [besides the only force of nature].”  This means that there is no other force in the world… that is opposite or similar to it, that exists besides it. That is, there is only one force in the world, Nature, which includes everything in it.

Actually, it doesn’t include anything in it; it only seems to us that it is divided into many parts. It seems to us that there are many forces, reasons, results, and different occurrences in the world, but it all stems from this one force.

We are among many people, with such big problems, worries, and constantly changing actions on purpose, so that despite everything, despite all these actions, problems, and interruptions we will focus our attention only on the force that created everything around us.

Everything that seems like interruptions that negate the uniqueness of this force, Nature, and that stems from one plan, one thought, one goal, all of it is meant to repel us from it so that we will return to the same track, like a missile that has to constantly follow the same course. It constantly checks itself when it is off track, and only so it can aim itself again towards the goal, like an ordinary surveillance system.

I have to direct myself at the goal, but I am on the path, not knowing how to advance, as if hanging in the air, and there are no road signs around. So how can I do anything? This is the state we are in: We don’t see the goal. It is totally hidden from us by the screen that conceals it.

Since there is a screen, we don’t know what goes on behind it. So how can we reach this goal?

To do that, we have “road signs” and certain diversions, and we constantly check ourselves and thus advance forward. By diverting from the goal, I calculate the error and return to a normal state. And this happens all the time.

But what state is considered normal? How do I know it? After all, I have never seen this great goal, so how can I aspire to it? I aspire to it when I aim all my thoughts, longings, actions, the reasons, the results, and everything that happens in the world to one source only. I have to attribute all the minuses and the pluses, everything that happens to me to one thing only—to this source.

This means that there are individual forces of a single force of Nature, which purposefully acts with the intention to divert a person from the goal.
[73794]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 3

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A spark emerges specifically out of collision, explosion, like when striking a flint against steel. A spark is something completely new; it is the result of a collision between two uncompromising opposites that fight with each other.

Nothing of this kind ever existed before; matter has always been under the Creator’s control. All of a sudden, a crash happens and it produces a spark. This spark does not exist either in the Creator or matter—either in the property of bestowal or in the property of reception. It results from a strike and creates a foundation that allows us to grow and become independent.

Solely due to this spark, we name the upper force “the Creator” who made something that didn’t exist in nature before. The spark is in fact creation.

Everything starts with a breakthrough, a collision, a sparkle. Our work is to shape our life around it. This spark is an independent point from which our development begins, similarly to a fetus in the Upper Mother.

The mother possesses two forces: Hochma and Hassadim, but we still need a spark to start growing using these two forces. Otherwise, creation will not exist. Only this particular kind of semen “impregnates” the Upper Mother.

Do you really think that any piece of matter placed into Her can eventually grow into a human being? She won’t accept anything other than that. She consists of two forces: bestowal and reception, which are separated by an abyss, a gap: the middle third of Sefira Tifferet. This is exactly where we should insert our spark since it also emerged as a result of the collision between two contradictory forces. When placed inside the mother, right in the middle of two opposite forces of Hochma and Hassadim, into Klipat Noga, we start growing there, which is called “one’s seed is also blessed.”

If I choose the desire to enjoy to the extent that I am able to create a screen (the intention to bestow) for it and connect them together, it means that I create myself. Of course, I do it with the help of the upper one: the group, the environment, and Bina. Then the entity formed there, within, is called man or Adam.
[73472]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/2012, TES

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Question: On whom does the ability to annul oneself with regards to the upper one depend: on a person or only on the Light?

Answer: The level of your self-annulment depends on the group. You will never be able to annul yourself before the teacher and before the Creator if the group doesn’t encourage, support, and strengthen you. You cannot annul your desires by yourself; you don’t have the strength for that.

You have to work with the group in relation to the Creator because without it, you won’t be able to approach Him. You have to assume the correct form that draws you closer to the Creator, and you do that with the help of the group. The group gives you this form of annulment, the approach, the point of contact with the upper one—you do all that within the group.

During the convention in the Arava desert you felt the existence of this contact point, the point of general connection. It isn’t in the upper one yet, but it is the result of our collective efforts. Now we need to develop it so that we will feel that this point is in the waters of Bina, in the Upper Mother (Ima Ilaa). This is the state we have to attain.

We should feel that we are inside the upper one and annul ourselves more and more on top of the growing ego in us, on top of the conflicts and problems that come up. We annul ourselves for the sake of unity, in order to stay in the upper one, to bring Him pleasure and not to reveal our desire, because otherwise we will become a foreign body and there will be a shattering, an abortion.

We have to attain greater loyalty to the upper one, which will symbolize that we are growing and expanding inside Bina, until we fill the entire space of Bina by our desire. The result is that the desire to enjoy is in it, but we have annulled ourselves completely above our ego and thus have grown. This is called a spiritual embryo.

When it reaches the size of all of Bina, of all the spiritual womb, its doors open.
[72292]
From Lesson 2. The Internal Convention, 3/2/2012

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 130: They that are granted the sensation of His Providence in the form of the first degree of disclosure of the face, called “repentance from fear,” are considered medium. This is because their emotions are divided into two parts, called “two cups of the scales.” From the time before they were awarded the above repentance, all remain standing and are called “a scale of sin.” And the scale of merit is set and guaranteed to them from the moment of repentance onwards, the time of repentance stands “between” the merit and the sin, and hence they are called “medium.”

It isn’t about time periods but about the present reality. Upon reaching this level, a person discovers in his present attributes that he has partly sinned and partly merited. In other words, there are still uncorrected and corrected parts in him. The criterion here, of course, is the connection with others and with the Creator.

At the same time, a person is immersed in a state of Hafetz Hesed: He cannot do any evil to the other, but he hasn’t done any good to the other either. So it is as if he is in the middle of life, having neutralized the evil in him, but not turned it into goodness yet.

Question: Can we set the attainment of this “intermediate” state as our goal?

Answer: Why settle for half? You should imagine the state of the complete righteous. If you are asking for something, ask for the maximum: the end of correction. If you want to find yourself at the end of correction, you will barely succeed in reaching the next level. This is because at the moment, you cannot imagine more than its corrupt back side. This is the limit of your imagination because you have no other model. So go all the way, wish for maximum bestowal, and by that you will acquire the minimal similarity to the AHP of the upper one.

But if you only ask for half, this isn’t bestowal but pettiness. In bestowal there is no calculation for part of the whole. In bestowal you are looking for what else you can add, how to engage everything you can.

In this sense the spiritual laws are simple. I yearn for the end of correction, and I want all my desires and thoughts to be aimed at bestowal upon others. This is what I ask for. There cannot be half way in the attribute of bestowal. By demanding half, I am making an egoistic calculation and this isn’t bestowal anymore. After all, a secret bid for personal benefit is necessarily present in the “altruistic half” as well.

It is impossible to limit bestowal. Therefore, the course should always be set towards the final goal and not to intermediate phases.

In everything that we do, from this world to the world of Infinity, there are ten whole Sefirot, but in a minimized form. We are in a holographic picture, in which every part contains a whole. Therefore, a partial calculation isn’t right here. You have to do everything in your power, everything that depends on you, and then you may barely reach the next level.

You are now facing the AHP of the upper one, and this is the only thing you can imagine as something infinite. It is the same with small children who cannot take an example from a grown up. A five year old looks at an eight year old like at “God” and wants to be like him. There is something he can “hold on” to, it resonates within him. Rabash gave the same example of a girl who is more interested in playing with a doll than with a real baby.

So don’t try to minimize the goal to the “accepted” sizes. Even if you aim at the maximum, you will barely reach the upper one.
[74157]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/1/2012, “Introduction to TES” 

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: With this collective responsibility, each member of the nation was liberated from worrying about the needs of his own body and could keep the commandment, “Love thy friend as thyself” in the fullest measure, and give all that he had to any needy person, since he no longer cared for the existence of his own body, as he knew for certain that he was surrounded by six hundred thousand loyal lovers, who were standing ready to provide for him.

This is the condition: The upper force is revealed only if we really need it for unification.

Question: Where does this agreement come from?

Answer: It comes from the general desire. One is not able to correct himself without the other. The correction is made through the universal unity. The force that corrects needs to be common to everyone.

The force and the mind, the effort and the approach, everything needs to descend from Above. Everything accumulates into one and as if “sews” me to others.

This is what we need to think about. If we want this to happen, then first of all, we need mutual guarantee. After all, in the general mutual inclusion, every single point that is soldered with the others contains all the rest.

Question: Is our cry to the Creator our agreement to this?

Answer: I would say yes. Only actually it isn’t a forced scream. We reach agreement about our state, about the helplessness, and the need to reach mutual bestowal, mutual guarantee, mutual connection, and mutual assistance and support. When you begin to connect all of these things, you discover that you lack the upper force. Then you really need it, while previously your needs were of a personal nature.

You discover that you need the upper force in order to really fulfill the conditions of connection in mutual bestowal between everyone. But it’s not starry-eyed idealism already since the goal is to discover the true attribute of bestowal that lies above the needs of all.

Thus, here the general agreement is required: We carry out the unification but not for the sake of corporeal benefit. Thus, it arrives as a result of our search, our work in analyzing the state.

Question: By what does the friend complete me?

Answer: Without one another, we are not able to understand what we need to receive the Light that Reforms. We can’t reveal our real deficiency if I don’t help him and he doesn’t help me.

Question: Do I ask for the friends?

Answer: I try to pray for the friends, I worry that they will receive spiritual revelation, understand, and feel what the spiritual world is. When everyone supports each other, each one shows the correct desire.

You want something that seems to you like spirituality. And it doesn’t matter how correctly you picture it to yourself. Let everything be artificial, until we receive the Light that Reforms. And still, try to think about the friends: “I wish that they will achieve this before me.” If you initially wish for the greatest things for the friends, this is already spirituality.
[71969]
From the Arava Convention 2/24/12, Lesson 6

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Baal HaSulam, Letter 12: But it is foolish to think that the Creator is obliged to bless exactly the place where the action takes place. On the contrary, usually, the action is in one place and the blessing in another place, in a place where a person doesn’t do anything, because he either didn’t know or couldn’t do anything there.

We exert ourselves in one place and the result is revealed in another, and so we don’t understand where all our work disappears. Actually, we don’t know what kind of work we are doing. Are our actions good or bad? Do they lead to the goal or not? Who carries them out: we or the Creator? We don’t understand all this because we are in a very confused state.

Why are we in concealment? We don’t know exactly what we should do with it, we don’t know if we act correctly or not.… Why is it that the fog, the confusion, the lack of understanding, the lack of orientation, or the lack of responsibility bear some result according to the principle of “I have labored and I found?” Why is it called exertion? Wouldn’t it be better if we were told in writing exactly what we should do?

No, that’s not the way it is. Although we cannot agree with this approach, it is described in endless places in Kabbalistic writings, in thousands of excerpts.

Our work is abstracted from results, and it is really very hard to accept this. I have to act like a “dummy,” like a beast, like a madman. I am offered a lie: to hug with the friends while I don’t want to, to speak about love while not feeling it…. In short, I have to do what I don’t understand.

This dualism is needed so that we will rise from this world to the spiritual one. The spiritual world is opposite from this world, it is unfamiliar, unperceivable. Therefore by these incomprehensible actions we acquire the vessels that guide us to the place we haven’t reached yet.

So we need the orders from Above to fulfill these actions. We want to enter the dimension that doesn’t go together with our attributes in any way, and in fact there is nothing that draws us in that direction. We have to act “automatically”: Kabbalists say and we do.

If a person understands that there is no choice, if he really wants to rise to a higher degree, then he is aware of the fact that this is a totally different level and it isn’t a quantitative addition at all. I will not be smarter or understand more, I will not acquire more earthly blessings. I act on the assumption that this world is exhausted and over. There is nothing I can add here.

I am getting ready to add something else to myself: a spiritual degree. Therefore, I have to be equipped with the vessels, the Lights, discernments, and Reshimot (informational genes)—with everything that belongs to the spiritual world.
[72050]
From the Arava Convention 2/25/12, Lesson 7

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Question: Can we measure our attainment?

Answer: First, what do I actually attain? To the extent that I bring contentment to the Creator, to that extent I attain the attribute called the “Creator (Boreh)” within me, according to the principle of “Bo-Reh” or “come and see.”

I attain the Creator in my understanding and awareness. This is my internal image. In the same way I also “draw” other people in my perception, and thus I attain them. My attributes are built so that I can imagine certain figures. I don’t know who is on the outside. Forces act outside of me, which project into my perception the “holographic picture” of other people who only seem to me as external. Thus my whole picture of the world is put together.

So what can I measure or weigh? I weigh my bestowal with regards to everything that I feel. This general measurement is called the “Creator.” Thus the Creator “clothes” a person, the Light “clothes” the created being.

I perceive different forms thanks to the attribute of bestowal that operates on the desires and arranges them in a certain way. From that I feel who the Creator is. I imagine the Creator and those who surround me as my own reaction to a certain action.

I don’t know who I am and what the world is. I don’t know anything, but gradually I begin to draw the sketches of different reactions and feelings in me. This is how I am built: The forms are all depicted as if on the outside. This illusion exists only here, in our current state.

A sensory system is developed in me along with its logical understanding. I live by the mind and the feeling. This reality is divided into four levels, the four layers of the desire: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. By the right combination of the four I discover the origin of everything that happens, my source, the source of my feeling, and of my four-layer images. I discover that there is an initial reason for all that, which I call the “Creator.” This reason is revealed when I begin to relate to all four levels with bestowal. Then out of equivalence of form, I discover the attributes of the Creator, the Giver.

Therefore, don’t think that our world actually exists—it all ends within me. Later, when I ascend the spiritual levels, it’s as if I move from one class to another. Suppose I know that I am in the first grade now, but can I compare it with the eighth grade or even with the second grade?

Today the clear measurements are still unavailable to us. We only have vague feelings, but there are no accurate tools because the mind and the feeling are not tied in such a way that we can attribute quantitative characteristics to our sensations. In the meantime we are on the psychological level, which lacks the mathematical tool for measurements and comparisons. Such a tool is truly provided by the wisdom of Kabbalah.
[73820]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/27/2012, “Introduction to TES” 

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All the obstacles stem from the unified force of nature. What do we need these obstacles for? Suppose I realized that this force has cut the ground under my feet, that it has misguided me, has forced me to forget the goal, the search, because it has caused me pain, worry, an unpleasant feeling, and I began to feel afraid of something, to worry about something. After all, I am only human, and it’s very easy to knock me out. And what’s next? What do we need all this for?

We need it so that we will feel that we cannot manage without this force, without its personal help to each one; that without our appeal to what we call the upper Light, the Surrounding Light, we cannot advance. Attaining this state is the next level of our development. When I understand that everything that happens is done only by this one and only force, and that it does it on purpose so that I will need its help, while I cannot do anything on my own, this is already the beginning of direct interaction with it. This is a very important and serious stage that cannot be attained if the surrounding environment doesn’t support me.

We have talked about the fact that a person actually has no free will in this world. He is totally managed by his genes, hormones, and other things. There are people who can predict a person’s future. It is really so, except for one thing: Free will is actually expressed in self-development aimed at the search for this force, for the direction towards it, the connection with it, and the demand that it help us, which is most important. This is actually what it wants: to help us if we ask it to do so.

Why does such an immense, perfect, and eternal force that includes all of nature, not confined by our corporeal frameworks of time and place, and unlimited in its capabilities and actions, why does it need us to need it, to ask it, and to expect that it will do something with us since we cannot do it by ourselves? Why does it need such actions on our part, our weak attempts?

It’s necessary so that we will develop a new desire in us that doesn’t exist in nature: a desire to be in contact with it, to attain it, and to work together with it. To the extent that this desire develops in us, this force makes contact with us and is revealed in this desire. Then I can feel this great managing force.

From this recognition, from this feeling, we begin to understand everything: who we are, where we are, for what reason, for what purpose, and what is happening to us. Therefore, I should want the revelation of this force in me. I have to develop this desire in me by myself; otherwise I will not be independent. If it gives me this desire, I will not be free. And if so, what’s the point in creating all this?…
[73788]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 3 

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Question: If disturbances come to me in the form of foreign thoughts, can I just stop thinking about them and ask the upper force to direct me back on the right path?

Answer: If I get a disturbance from the upper force, why should I ask It to remove it? It is the same as when my mother asks me to assemble a new toy from a Meccano kit, an airplane or a car, and I say: “I don’t want to.” How can I grow? If I want a car that is already assembled, I will grow into an undeveloped child. It is because when I assemble, take apart, or break something, then everything happens the way it should. Just like all those years at school or university when we were constantly given assignments. They could have given us the answer. Why do we need disturbances?..

Question: Suppose an external thought came to me. Do I simply break through it further, realizing that this a disturbance, and think about how to work with it?

Answer: Work with a disturbance should be done in the following way: After you focus on the idea that everything comes from the Creator, you should process this disturbance together with the friends. That is all! You will not be able to direct yourself at Him on the same frequency. You cannot. You can do it only together in the group!

When you are together in one group, and all kinds of mutual relationships exist between you (we are talking only about the relationships that are relevant to the goal), then this single force of nature exists around you and above you. You have to create a resonant circuit in yourself like in a radio receiver, which tunes to Him, and then you will pick Him up. This force fills everything around and inside you, but you can pick it up when you tune into the same frequency.

People come to the group with their problems, with the minuses. What happens next? They connect with each other, and all the minuses disappear because we only desire to work on bestowal. I rise above my problems—they remain below. There are plenty of minuses below me and below each of our friends, but we understand that they are created in order for us to aspire to mutual bestowal, so that we work on these minuses.

In what way? They come from a single unified force. It does this on purpose so we rush towards it in spite of the problems that arise in each of us, and most importantly between us. After all, great hatred, dislike, contradictions, and misunderstanding arise between us: No one understands me, and I do not understand anyone; no one appreciates me, and I do not want or appreciate anyone.

Everyday problems are more or less discarded, but the problems that exist in the group and repel us from each other are the central problems. “Stacking” these problems, aiming them forward together, we as though tell the Creator: “You will not divert us from the path. We understand where this comes from. You put all these problems in front of us so that we’ll rise above them, like above Mount Sinai (the mountain of hatred), to You.”

Here, against all the disturbances that He causes purposely, you generate a completely new property: unity. Thus, you begin to discover Him between you—His quality, His force. This is your radio receiver, your sensor, the sensory organ that you create in yourself. In it, you immediately reveal Him—not somewhere outside or above, but here, inside.
[73966]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 3

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Why don’t we feel progress? We can aspire to each other for a long time, try to organize a group, and in the end we get no results.

The truth of the matter is that we need to pass through what is called the “preparation period.” It is exactly like the first twenty years in a person’s life, which he spends to become a grown up and enter into life. Only after that does the next stage, the real correction, begin.

At the new level, we continue to work in the same group. However, if previously we had the group and the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif or OM), now we have the group and the Direct Light (Ohr Pnimi or OP). Therein lies all the difference.

Of course this is a huge difference. During the preparation, we work in darkness and constantly suffer with questions. It is precisely here that the work is the strongest. After all, we work having no understanding, no knowledge of what we are doing.

Actually, the most important work is realized at these levels. It is also like this with small children. During their growth process, they set the basis for their subsequent existence, for their entire life. The way a person spends his first twenty years, prepares himself, absorbs the good acts, the intentions, the understanding of what is happening, knowledge, and so on, that’s the way he will continue to exist in this world. And in spirituality the situation is even more rigorous: Until a person passes these years, meaning the time of preparation, he doesn’t enter the upper world.

In this way, the preparation period demands a question: How many years do we need to devote to it? The answer is simple: It’s not about the number of years—it depends on us. We see that many new students come to the group much more prepared than we were in the past. Everything is already internally arranged within them, they quickly grasp the principles and connect to the group; it’s as if it’s easier for them. From this we see that the time changes everything.

Thus, this time depends only on us. We can compress, shorten it. Only the intensity of our studies determines how quickly we will advance on this path, this introductory phase, the time of preparation.
[73865]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 4

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