The work in Egypt does not end until you see that you will not be able to achieve anything there. You think that you have become free and have acquired everything, but you suddenly reveal that you are still in exile!

You thought that you were in the land of Israel, the land of the Creator (“Yashar-El“). After all, there are no geographic locations in the spiritual world. “Place” is created by the same desires, and in them you wanted to build spirituality, thinking that you are building a holy temple, doing the work of a priest (Cohen), Levite, and the nation of Israel.

You thought that you were in the holy land, and you suddenly discover that all your actions were egoistic, for your own sake. It was Pharaoh instead of the Creator, Pithom and Ramses instead of the Temple, and Egyptians instead of the priests, Cohens and Levites. Then, you run from Egypt.
[64296]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: If we can advance in spirituality only by constant acceleration, how can we achieve that?

Answer: We have to “accelerate” our exertion and constantly increase it. Every next level includes the entire previous level in its lowest Sefira, Malchut. Thus the effort multiplies constantly.
[64303]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: As a psychiatrist I clearly picture people studying in the program of integral upbringing for three to five years. Do you think there are any time constraints, or will people be studying it all their lives?

Answer: Until the entire humanity reaches the highest level of integration with Nature, when we are all connected to it internally, almost instinctively, working with it in unison, I don’t see any way we could walk away from or refuse this. Nature will nonetheless immediately push us toward equilibrium with it with all kinds of blows.

As to what will happen after we’ve reached this state, that I do not know. However, at least for now, observing this developmental trend, meaning nature’s behavior with respect to us, one could say that it will certainly bring us to a state of total harmony.

Comment: So there is some kind of a higher goal in this method that we will all eventually reach?

Answer: I think that in so doing a person will attain the informational depths of his being that exist as though outside his body. In our body we exist for a certain time, while information and its circulation in its various incarnations are eternal. Presently the circulation of information is manifested through the body, though it can manifest through some other images.

Practically speaking, here we rise to a fantastic degree. It may appear that we’re talking about life after death or something like that. However, we’re rising to levels that many people, such as Wolf Messing, already feel in this world.

I think that all people in the world can attain this. In other words, a person ascends above the will of chance, above his own fate.
[64336]
Talk on Integral Education 12/12/11

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Question: What is the screen composed of and how it is able to keep the Light from neutralizing the desire?

Answer: The screen is not the desire, but the force of resistance. The screen is felt as a calculation for the work on the desire.

How can I rise above the desire if I am in it? I get a special force from the outside (from the environment or from the Light, that is, from some external factor), which allows me to become detached from my desire.

And then I don’t sink within my desire and nor do I identify with it. I am not under its control, when I think only of how to fulfill it, similar to a slave who receives orders from his master and runs out to search for how to attain what his master has demanded. I receive a different kind of force from Above, a different calculation, which happens either by way of great suffering or through intellectual enlightenment.

Before this, I only worried about my desire and wanted to fulfill it, that is, I was a big egoist. This big egoist doesn’t exist any more within its small desire. He is detached from it and from the side examines how it is possible to fulfill it more and more.

But by separating from from egoism for the sake of greater fulfillment, I begin to perform a calculation outside of my ego. A kind of split is created between my ego and myself in making decisions: The mind and my desire are as if split. And then I begin to understand that the desire always enslaves the mind and turns me into its slave.

Many people in the world experience this, for example alcoholics or drug addicts. If something causes obvious damage, a person understands that he has become a slave of his desire, of the vicious habit.

But if I look at my desire from the side (and of course a big and developed ego is required here: both the mind and desire), I begin to be sorry that I constantly obey it. I would like some relief from it, and here the development of man begins.

I begin to reflect if it is at all possible to somehow change my desires, to limit some of them and to increase the others? This is possible via the environment. If the shattering had not occurred and the environment had not emerged, we wouldn’t have any chance to exit our desires. But since I am connected to the environment that awakens me and provides me different values, as a result of this, I gradually change.

I compare them with my values and see that I am interested only in good food, and if the environment talks about music, theatre, and opera, I start feeling ashamed and begin to make calculations that distance me from my desire. At least I begin to criticize it, and thus a problem is created: I am not satisfied with myself any longer, and I am compelled to change to fit the environment.

Thus the influence of the environment brings us to such calculation when we are prepared to completely change—only so that others will respect us. But for now I act purely egoistically, without any screen. For the meantime, it is the egoistic screen. I want to be thin and pretty, thus I limit my food intake. Although this is also not easy, people do it anyway. Everything depends on what is more important to me and what gives me the greatest pleasure: how I look externally or food.

Everything depends on my calculation, when with the help of the environment I can increase the importance of one thing over another. Thus whoever is interested in losing weight or in being rehabilitated from a harmful habit must be included into a suitable society that values life without that habit.

But if you want to acquire the anti-egoistic screen, it is something else. For that you need an environment that makes you feel the importance of bestowal. It should hurt you that you are not able to bestow. You will feel that you are belittled because of it, that you aren’t worth anything and are wasting your life, and that in general, there is no reason to live if you don’t attain the attribute of bestowal.

The influence of the environment needs to be very strong, up to the point where you feel that you would rather die than live like this. And then you will begin to demand, to request, to pray, to perform all kinds of calculations and actions in order to acquire the screen. And when you see that there is no way to attain it, you will begin to ask for the Light that reforms. This is what will bring you to the recognition of evil.
[63311]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/2011, TES

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Here is an inner exercise: We are far from each other in our qualities and thoughts—foreign and different ones; we are separated by everyone’s individual egoism. There are so many of us, and we differ so much from each other in order to reveal the Creator through our connection.

Our differences, distance, and rejection show the distance to the Creator. I see how far I am from the people who study with me, who are my closest people in the world in spirit, purpose, aspiration, and understanding of life. And we are still so far from each other. I am even more distant from all the other people in the world. If I test myself in relation to every person, then this entire cumulative difference will be the distance between me and the Creator.

Now the meaning of the group becomes clearer. This is why we unite between us: We want to be able to achieve some kind of correspondence at least between us and become closer to each other, which means to be closer to the Creator. We aspire to at least overcome the difference between us. We push our egoism away, rise above it, and wish to connect only with our higher thoughts and desires, to become closer to the Creator in one form or another.

This way we begin the journey. And then we will see that there are no people here, there are no individual souls, there is nothing—only a blurry vision, which causes me to see people instead of the Creator. It is as if I am not able to focus; everything is blurry, and instead of one person, I see two, three, or four. And now I see billions of bodies before me. But if I manage to combine them all, I’ll get the Creator.

This is what I need the group for: to start this process one way or another. All our unity exercises must be directed towards the revelation of the Creator! After all, they are a means for revealing Him. There is no meaning in a group on its own, but only from the point of view expressed as: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.”

Baal HaSulam writes that there was a horrible crime done in the socialist Russia in starting to build an altruistic society and having completely deformed the principle of being one man with one heart, one desire, one purpose. Everyone was together; fair distribution, mutual guarantee, everything was wonderful, except for one thing: They have turned a means for attaining the goal into their goal. And this made them lose big time.

It is the same as focusing and combining blurry images in order to see them themselves, and not what stands behind them. And I will naturally miss because my focus is not on the image concealed behind these illusions, but on the illusions. And this is why Russia has failed.

We cannot allow for this to happen to us, and this is why there must always be three components present: I, the group (the place and the means for revelation), and the Creator, that is, the revelation of the Creator to the created beings.
[62147]
From Lesson 2 at Arava Convention 10/28/2011

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Question: What does it mean to lower yourself?

Answer: Lowering yourself means instead of giving in and falling, you search for different means to make the upper Light let you feel that bestowal is more important than reception.

All changes happen by virtue of the Light that reforms. Therefore, lowering yourself means doing everything possible from your end (which is called a prayer) so you will value the quality of bestowal and elevate it much higher than any reception, and so any reception would be despicable, while bestowal would be holy in your eyes.

Then you will want it! And to the degree of your desire, you will attract the Light that reforms, which will create the structure of the spiritual Partzuf in you: the head (Rosh), meaning bestowal will be above, whereas the body (Guf), reception – below. The head is on top, above everything, which means that even reception below, in the body, takes place for the sake of bestowal. This is the right spiritual Partzuf.
[64309]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/11, Writings of Rabash

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When I use everything that exists outside of me for my own sake, it is egoistic usage. But when there is a reality outside of me, which aspires to the same goal as me, then the same intentions that exist within me also awaken in my soul, in all the desires that are external to me. And this is why I begin to work with these external desires referred to as friends.

From this we can understand that the group is my soul, the place where I reveal the Creator, my inner fulfillment, the spiritual life. From the entire external reality the Light organizes certain forces for me called the group, which are closest to my point in the heart that exists inside my body, inside my ego. And then I can establish a connection between my point in the heart, confined inside the body, and my soul that exists outside of me.

This is how I begin to acquire these external desires. This is why it is written: “Buy yourself a friend.” I buy my external desires by rejecting my ego, the desires to enjoy, making gifts, and doing different actions in the group.

This can help us understand the meaning of internal work, when I make an effort against my egoistic desire, inside my point in the heart, so I would connect with my external desires and transfer myself there as much as possible. And I do this until I entirely begin to only be fulfilled inside these external desires, instead of fulfilling my inner, natural, egoistic, desires.

The worlds, including the world of Infinity, the entire universe become revealed to me inside these external desires. But my ego will resist and serve by “help made against” me to show me the desires that are still left outside of me, and it will do it to the very end, until I acquire all the external desires. I will not be able to reveal whatever is around me without my ego awakening inside of me.

There is a universe, and I, my ego, and my point in the heart exist inside it. My closest circle is my group, my friends. And then the rest of the world follows: humanity, the animate, vegetative, and still nature. Or we can treat it as worlds with which I work: Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, and Adam Kadmon.

This makes it clear why I need this entire world, the so-called 99% who personally are unable to help me, and this is why I must simply give to them one-sidedly. The only ones who can help me are the group, given to me by the Creator so that I manage to come out of myself, my boundaries. The main thing is to get out of myself—it is the most difficult thing to do.

This is why it is arranged to have one area in the entire large soul, which would be closest to me, and it is called the group. It helps me come out of myself and start acquiring my soul.

And when I come out of myself, I advance even further, together with the group beyond its boundaries, connecting the entire universe to me and attaining all of nature as one whole. I attain the integrity of nature, its full connection, and thus reveal the upper worlds.

I reveal an even greater Light by attaining a connection with the spiritual forces on lower degrees: “humanity,” “animals,” “plants,” and the “inanimate” where a larger desire to enjoy exists.
[64053]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”: Thus, we are at the hands of these four factors, as clay in the hands of a potter.

We are surrounded by the influence from Above from all sides. The Creator rules over us in a very harsh and absolute manner as He controls all the channels, both internal and external, in our desires, thoughts, habits, and nature. We have nothing that is ours, and even the words I am saying now are arranged by Him.

So what is our free will? After all, we cannot attribute freedom to any object, action, thought, or the smallest particle of the desire to receive. The Creator created it, He influences it absolutely, so what can be free in it?

People have come up with theories about two authorities and polytheism, about which Baal HaSulam writes in his article “The Peace.” It is hard to agree that there is only one authority that “covers” everything. If the Creator is unified, if there is none else besides Him, if everything depends on Him, then I am under His absolute control, and it is as if I don’t exist, but rather dissolve in Him. So it is preferable to have two authorities: a good one and a bad one. This is understandable; in between them there is room for me, and I can affect things.

Still, at some point I realize that behind everything that affects me there is one Source. It isn’t an image that we can picture, but a mind, a feeling, something unified. I only have to discover the reason why it affects me, what it wants from me? What I should become according to its influence?

By knowing what He wants from me, I will know Him. What for? Is it just to make an acquaintance or in order to fulfill His desire?

What was His intent in creating me? What does He want by managing me this way? If He only wants me to obey Him, then it’s better not to know anything, but to simply act according to the instructions I have received. But if He really wants me to attain, to reveal Him, then I have to do everything to attain this goal and not to act automatically.

So there is a lot of work a person has to do regarding the initial cause of everything. This is our only work: to constantly sharpen and “polish” our attitude to Him. Who is He? What does He want from me? Why did He make me react this way? I constantly climb the levels of my attitude and clarify what He wants to give me by putting demands to me. What He wants is that thanks to bestowal upon Him, I will understand Him.

I continue this chain and constantly raise the level of His demands to me. Thus I have to justify the evil just like the good since they both come from one source. I have to understand why He splits His bestowal into two—thanks to this I will be able to check myself, to adjust my course. For Him this duality doesn’t exist, but my reality is divided into bestowal and reception.

Eventually, we must constantly reveal the concept of Unified, and not more than that. If I paid attention to that, I would see that there is nothing else in my life. Even in the corporeal world everything comes down to this clarification that discovers unity and reveals the Creator.
[63986]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/22/2011, “The Freedom”

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Question: The students of Rabbi Shimon hated each other in the beginning of their studies, but still they aspired to achieve unity. With experience, a person learns to view himself objectively, even when he’s in a state of hatred. Is it possible that the hatred could blind a person’s analytical point, or does his objective view always remain?

Answer: This depends on the state. Sometimes the emotions take us over, leaving no room for analysis. This is when we are capable of doing terrible things. And sometimes emotions are balanced by the mind, and I remain in control of the situation only to be amazed at my own emotions. In addition, I could also be aware that the current state is sent to me by the Creator. The upper force is the source of this state, and it is sent to me in order to advance me along the path.

Hence, everything depends on our awareness. How can we activate it today? Can we constantly remember that all of our states come from Above so that we would correctly overcome them and draw benefit from each one of them?

We can attain this state only through mutual responsibility thanks to which we maintain a connection with the environment or the group. If I’m constantly under the influence of my environment and I invest my effort whenever I’m able to, then I can constantly receive from my friends an illumination, the Surrounding Light. The greater our connection, the more Light I receive from them, whereas on my own I have absolutely no chances of achieving anything.

To the extent of my ability I participate in all of the group’s activities. If I don’t have the opportunity to do so, for example, if I wasn’t given the opportunity from Above to go to the convention, then regrettably I remain home with the understanding that this state was given to me by the Creator, and therefore it’s probably the optimal state for my development.

Most importantly, you should use each moment to ensure a proper environment for yourself. After all, what happens in the next moment is concealed from me.

In our world a person makes payments for health insurance, to social security, and other private insurances in order to secure his future. Whatever happened in the past happened, but we are always concerned with what will happen in the future. To the extent of my ability, I have to ensure that the future is better or at least not worst than the present. This means that I must remain in the correct environment and strengthen it if possible.

I have no other options. Unlike in the modern financial system, here we have no concessions: You get exactly what you put in. I invest penny by penny into my environment and receive the Light from it. Essentially, it is the Malchut of the world of Infinity. This is my cash register, and there is no other place for me to invest.

This explains the importance of dissemination. After all, by disseminating you invest into your environment; it is your broader, albeit still potential, environment. These efforts are also accounted for.

Ultimately my work creates “assets” (Zchut) that are registered in my spiritual “bank.” To the extent of my investment, I receive the Light from the group and become more pure (Zach).
[62157]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/2011, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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My goal is to constantly reveal the extent to which I am unable to connect everything together into “one man with one heart,” and to demand the Torah whose Light reforms. This Light reaches us from the source of AB-SAG (Hochma and Bina together).

After all, we are unable to attain Keter itself, but only through our actions in the Light of Hochma and the Light of Hassidim. And all of this is revealed in ZON: in the broken and divided creature. Thus we correct ourselves each time.

This is why it is said that first of all there will be the correction of the world and only afterwards the final correction. After all, “world” means “muteness” (Elem), “concealment” (Alama), separation. The Light of One, which connects everything together and directs everything from one upper source, first of all carries out the correction and connects everything that I feel in my sensation of reality together.

And then depending on how opposite and scattered these poles are in my perception and depending on how much Light that Reforms I attract, which connects everything above their differences into One, to the extent of this gap between separation and unity, I discover the magnitude of my spiritual vessel or desire.

In this vessel I feel the power of the Light revealed as Nefesh, Ruach, Neshma, Haya, and Yechida. The kind of Light I feel depends on the difference between the broken and separated desires connected by the Light above themselves into one general intention to use themselves for the sake of bestowal.

From this we understand the meaning of “for the sake of bestowal,” which means that I can connect with someone in one action, with one goal. Egotistically, it isn’t possible to act together, with one goal. Indeed, each one wants to act for himself, to fulfill his private desires. Thus, within the ego, the concept of One cannot exist, only the concept of “many.”

If we are speaking of One, which means the connection into a single whole, the return to Him, the revelation of the One (since actually there is none else besides Him, and everything else is the worlds, “concealments”), then this concept exists only outside of the egotistic desire. That is, it exists in the desires of others, in order to connect them all by the intention to bestow together to that One.

From this picture it becomes clear that only through bestowal can we succeed in reaching common actions and reach one result from the numerous actions that aspire to unite together. This is impossible in egoistic reception, but only if we exit our egoism and move outside towards the mutual goal, outside of our personal egoistic interests.
[61871]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/27/2011, Shamati #69

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