Malchut is the desire to enjoy, and it understands nothing but that. But if due to the Light, which constantly comes from Above, it develops to the extent that it desires to feel what is above it, then it starts to seek the first nine Sefirot.

At first it strives towards the higher Sefirot only to receive from them for itself because it thinks that they have something that would fill it. This is similar to a person in our world who wants to absorb the entire world, all opinions, scientific knowledge, and culture and thinks that thus he will be able to fill himself, obtain knowledge and power.

But communicating with the first nine Sefirot even egoistically, Malchut receives from them illumination, which begins to “spoil” it. On one side, it starts to understand that the higher Sefirot have nothing that it can understand, get, and become filled with. This is the conclusion that humanity draws in the course of its history.

On the other side, the received Light awakens in it a sense of its insignificance: the feeling that there is something above it, that it is controlled, and it will never take power. This way a person begins to connect with the environment more for he sees that he depends on it. And thus, he comes to correction.

But the entire correction is also within the environment, not within oneself. Everyone has only one point, and a person finds himself only by becoming included in the collective desire existing outside him.

A person understands that his “I” is not in his point, which he first wanted to raise and satisfy. To the extent he gives himself to the world, there he finds his true spiritual vessel and his real attainment. There he remains—within the others. And then he becomes independent from his starting point, as well as eternal because this point is cancelled. Thereby he reaches Infinity.

The mutual inclusion of Malchut in the first nine Sefirot occurs at all levels, and at the level of this world it is manifested as our evolution. Today, we are at a special transition: Humanity begins to switch from the feeling of inclusion of the first nine Sefirot in Malchut at its level to the inclusion of Malchut in the first nine Sefirot.

That is why we begin to understand that it is impossible to exist without the inclusion into others. We will no longer be able to live in a consumer society and will need to build new, different relations.

The same processes that occur in the world of Infinity and at every stage take place here, in this world, only in another matter.
[63220]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/2011, TES

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What is my “self?” I exist, feel, live, and perceive reality…. But I don’t know what the “self” is. I only know that it’s the way in which I feel myself: There is the “self” and there is my environment. Where does this feeling come from? It comes from my desire to receive. I feel all kinds of pleasures and deficiencies one way or another, and they are part of my perception, feeling, cognition, and understanding.

On the whole, my vessels make up the desire to receive. To some extent they are full and to some extent empty. The desire that is divided into five levels of development (the still, vegetative, animate, speaking, and the root) makes up the feeling of my personal body, my life, my “self,” and the environment. Eventually I have to attain the essence of my desire with everything that is within it. What is this desire? What does it mean to feel it?

I am in it, and it radiates the feeling of itself and of external reality. The feeling of the self is my body. The feeling of external life is made up of many people and of the whole universe. All of this is depicted and presented inside my desire.

These things should be clarified in the light of free will: How can I use them? Which way should I direct them? Can I do anything that I want with these feelings? Or can I use them only if I turn in a certain direction? Do I have to find the right “frequency,” the right range of frequencies in which I’ll see the whole picture and the way to the goal? In such a case, all the other ways are closed. They’re not for me.

A very delicate approach is needed here, the only approach that will enable me to see the picture in the right light. All the other paths provide me with false and distorted pictures, and I will pay dearly for their falsity. The main point here is to understand what I should do and where to go. In order to do that, I tune myself to the desirable range of frequencies, choose the correct “crack,” in order to look at my internal and external reality. Such approach brings me to the only possible action I should perform—that of a free choice.

Everything else is irrelevant. Even if I don’t know anything else, it makes no difference. The main point is that I know this. My whole life and future depend upon this. By fulfilling this “subtle” principle, I can also change everything else, and extremely so. I should deal with what’s important and not with anything else because then I will only mess things up.

Thus, free will should protect me from false and harmful actions that will take great efforts to correct. I need to reach the essence in the shortest way possible and to realize it.

For that Baal HaSulam explains that every state I am in is divided into four parts. If I know myself, I am under their control. These are the factors:

• The source;
• The unchanging conduct of cause and effect;
• The internal conduct of cause and effect;
• The conduct of cause and effect of alien things.

The source is the unchanging nature, the essence, which I received even before I felt myself here and now. One may ask about it questions like, why, and what for, but it won’t change reality. You are what you are, and you advance on a one way street, from the beginning to the end. The distance you have traveled is the past, and there is no point complaining about it. All you have to do is find out how to make the future better.

As for the conduct of cause and effect, here too, as Baal HaSulam says, there is nothing you can do. Of course, wheat will grow from a grain of wheat, and rice will grow from a grain of rice. These changes are additions to the source, they dress upon it. Besides the initial data that exist in the Reshimo, in the “particle of information” which contains everything, there is also the rest of the development, the second factor, which is also predetermined. And this means that one should look for free will in the third or fourth factors.
[63487]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/2011, “The Freedom of Will”

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Question: Is the point of unity situated between spiritual and physical unity? Or does physical unity not exist at all?

Answer: Physical unity makes no difference here. When we meet, we constantly subconsciously search for this point within us. Now we will begin to work with this and will understand it.

It was important to reach the state of our point of contact. Now, when it has been achieved, we just need to develop it. And even those who have not reached it can come to feel this contact since it’s already our common acquisition.

Now we just have to broaden this point in spite of all the obstacles. We need to understand that the obstacles are meant precisely in order to broaden it, to make it grow. I hope that over the next few months we will form the first ten Sefirot from it. And that will be the first demonstration of our soul.

In these ten Sefirot we’ll begin to feel the forces, plan, flow, and the entrance and exit of the Light. We’ll begin to feel all the movements in them like in a live organism, and we’ll begin to live our common inner life. A soul, rather than just a point of contact, will emerge within us. The Creator created one creature, and each of us will begin to feel himself or herself in it. In other words, it will be our “hostel.”

And gradually we’ll start to perceive our physical bodies as something that accompanies us. The broadening of the point of unity, the expansion of this higher quality will begin to prevail over everything to such an extent that we practically will not associate ourselves with our bodies. We’ll perceive ourselves as living only in the point of unity. Meanwhile, our bodies gradually will become more and more distant, irrelevant, and unneeded, until they dissolve completely as if they do not exist.
[63446]
From the Sunday Virtual Lessons Series 12/11/2011

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The Ari writes in the book The Tree of Life (16th century) that upon exiting the animal world through the transitional stage of apes, we acquired the human form. This occurred both on the physical, bodily, level, and on the emotional, spiritual one: We develop within the desires of the still, vegetative, and animate nature until we arrive at the egoistic desires of the fourth, human, degree. The human degree is also subdivided into these four levels, but as a whole, humanity is distinct from the rest in its unique pattern of development.

Previous development proceeded at the material level, limited to absorbing and excreting substances. The still nature is almost always restricted to internal processes; the vegetative one exchanges substances with the surrounding environment: It breathes, consumes, and secretes, but only to a tiny extent.

Given all that, the vegetative level of nature wholly depends on the external conditions; it doesn’t move from its place and is subject to the cycling of the seasons. The animate nature has fewer restrictions: Its representatives move from place to place, possess a more developed desire, have specialized ways of producing offspring, and can better consume nourishment and excrete waste. And this, in essence, is the conclusion of the external, material, development.

From this point on a special fourth degree becomes added to it. But first let us ask ourselves: Why couldn’t the process be completed at this level? Why couldn’t the third phase of the Direct Light become the final one?

Keter, also known as the root, zero phase, created the desire to receive, the first phase (Behina Aleph) and filled it. Then this desire longed to become like the upper one, which is already the second phase (Behina Bet), the will to bestow. In order to perform bestowal upon the upper one, the second phase makes a decision: “I must receive.” Then from the center of Bina it forms a new state for itself, the third phase (Behina Gimel), Zeir Anpin, which receives in order to bestow.

What, then, is missing here? Seemingly, the third phase has everything? It has everything except its independence, self-awareness, and perception of the upper one, everything except its own “I.” It lacks the inner development relative to the upper one. In other words, it requires a connection with its root, the one thing that would allow it to continue on its path.

It is here that the fourth phase arises (Behina Dalet) or Malchut. This is a unique phase, characterized by inner, qualitative development.

Up to this point the desire has already developed in its due course. We see this in our world, which has more than enough egoism. And now we have to develop qualitatively in order to attain the upper root. The world has already realized its egoism and understood what can and cannot fulfill it. All forms have been tried, as a result of which we grew up and destroyed everything. The only thing that remains now is the question of connection with the upper one, the Creator: Where do I come from and where am I going?

And this precisely is the fourth phase: the degree of true development of man, accompanied by the desires of the other phases. From here it is necessary to understand what “religion” is in the context of development. It is a special mechanism, a special method that allows us to grasp the distance between me and the Creator. And it pertains only to the human degree.

Who, then, can start doing this work? The one who senses the separation from the Creator, who feels the inclination towards this. In other words, it is only those who have the point in the heart. All the rest are in the previous stages of development: still, vegetative, and animate.

This is why we perceive this difference, the separation, the pressure, the drive towards something. It develops within us the feeling of recognition of evil.

What is this evil? Perhaps I am experiencing negative sensations because I wasn’t able to steal something and escape unnoticed? Or is it because I am aware of the evil relative to the Creator? Thus, “religion” in this sense is a school of internal and external education, which reveals to me how distant I still am from the Creator and how I can overcome this abyss.

This has absolutely no connection with the traditional notions of “religion.” There is man, and there is the upper force. The question is only in recognition of how opposite we are and in overcoming this gap.
[62077]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/2011, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”: Take, for example, a stalk of wheat that has rotted in the ground and arrived at a state of sowing many stalks of wheat. Thus, that rotten state is deemed the “source,” meaning that the essence of the wheat has stripped off its former shape, the shape of wheat, and has taken on a new discernment, that of rotten wheat, which is the seed called “the source,” which has no shape at all.

Why is the stalk of wheat of the previous degree not deemed to be the “source?” It is because it still possesses a form of its own and is not the root of the next state. The seed of wheat must disintegrate, turn into “power,” the potential of the future state, and then it will be able to germinate as a new sprout. Thus, the state of disintegration is necessary in the middle.

Answer: To lose the previous form in order to take on the next form. It cannot happen in another way. This way Keter turns into Malchut, which springs into a new Keter, over and over again.

Question: What should a person aspire to in his work: to lose the current form or to acquire a new one?

Answer: To accelerate advancement, that is, to increase the frequency of change of states. And every time I should strive for a new form. Let the stage of disintegration be on the way to it, I do not care. I understand that it is necessary.

It’s the same way that we need to sleep, as if disappearing into nonexistence. Is it not a pity to lose these hours of life? However, we know that without sleep the mess of the past day will not get organized into shelves and drawers inside our head. All my experiences need to go through processing, indexing, and storage. Only then will I be ready for new work and new perception.

Question: So how do you accelerate the speed?

Answer: Through the help of the environment that forms the right desire in me.

Question: And one always needs to strive towards the next state?

Answer: One always needs to strive towards unity of Israel, the Torah, and the Creator. This is the next state. The same unity every time, only on a higher degree, more powerful, more “juicy,” of better quality: I, the group, and the common force of bestowal, the Creator, in us.
[63230]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/15/2011, “The Freedom”

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Baal HaSulam opened his “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot” with these words: “At the outset of my words, I find a great need to break an iron wall that has been separating us from the wisdom of Kabbalah, since the ruin of the Temple to this generation. It lies heavily on us and arouses fear of being forgotten from Israel.”

According to its definition, the wisdom of Kabbalah is a means of revealing the Creator to the created beings. The Creator is the only upper force that exists and rules over creation. The created being is completely detached from Him and doesn’t know why, for what purpose, and how he exists. And here appears the means called “the wisdom of Kabbalah,” designed to connect the Creator and the created being.

This connection is called “revelation of the Creator to the created being,” and it is carried out according to the development of the created being. The Creator is concealed not because He hides Himself from us on purpose, but because the attributes of the created being do not allow him to attain the Creator and discover Him.

Thus, it is necessary to change the attributes of the created being, given to him from the beginning, to other attributes. Then the created being will discover the Creator and become similar to Him. This means that he will arrive at the same form of existence.

Up until the destruction of the Second Temple, the wisdom of Kabbalah was revealed. This means that the Creator was revealed to the created beings who were in contact with Him and were called the “nation of Israel.” But afterwards, after the fall, the attributes of those who were in connection with the Creator were damaged. This is called “the destruction of the Temple.”

And then the wisdom of Kabbalah disappeared. The connection between the Creator and the created being came to naught, and it hasn’t existed since then. And now Baal HaSulam wants to restore it, which means to restore it in the same form that existed previously, before the destruction. Now we need to restore this connection for the broken desires that were completely severed and distanced from the revelation of the Creator and from equivalence to Him.

Thus, the wisdom of Kabbalah that Baal HaSulam reveals for us is different from the one that existed in the past. In the past it belonged to the already existing system of connections and forms. But in our days people don’t know what the Creator is. The created being is broken and scattered. It is no longer a small group that is more or less corrected, but is a huge humanity in which these broken desires are scattered.

Thus, we must awaken them and make a long journey until humanity begins to discover the Creator. Until then we will need to go through a great number of stages of correction.

These stages of correction aren’t similar to those that the small group that was once shattered has gone through. Now a large group of people are involved, including “the stony heart (Lev ha Even)” and all the attributes of the AHP (the receiving desires). Thus it is not just revealing the wisdom of Kabbalah. We also must pass it on correctly to our generation.

Baal HaSulam calls this separation, the barrier, that exists within us and doesn’t allow us to discover the Creator and the spiritual world “the iron wall.” It is named so since it is indeed so great and strong! And he doesn’t expect it to go away and disappear by itself; he intends to break it.

This barrier exists in the heart of each person. And Baal HaSulam wants to reach the heart of each and everyone and perform this work in it. This means that he, being sure that he has enough strength and one could even say “impudence” to declare that he is able to do this, takes the responsibility upon himself to penetrate the created being.

Indeed this iron wall is the existing separation between the Light that rose to the world of Atzilut after the scattering and between the broken desires that fell to the worlds BYA (Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya) and were separated from the Light. The difference between them is that very wall that grew as egoism developed and added to it all our stigmas, traditions, religions, and beliefs about Kabbalah, and slander against this wisdom and Kabbalists.

Baal HaSulam will need to break all of these barriers in his introduction. But also we must take part in this breakthrough. After all, we receive from it only the means with which we must continue working on our own, for the sake of breaking this partition.

This declaration is the headline for all of Baal HaSulam’s teaching. It explains why he disclosed Kabbalah and offers it to us, which is specifically for the above mentioned purpose.
[63490]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/2011, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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I am optimistic. I think we are advancing forward wonderfully. I am pushing more and more, but I am certainly happy each moment that everything is being revealed so quickly.

We must maintain the admiration and the joy, not leaving a place for sadness. Even lack of satisfaction can appear only from happiness and longing for something greater. In other words, we need to be happy from the desire burning in us, and even if we don’t have a desire, we should be happy that we feel and understand this. If a person connects to spirituality, even a little, he is already on his way. One can criticize and to be sad only for a moment, in order to immediately return to happiness and determination.

According to all calculations (in spite of it being impossible to make them), we are on the brink of salvation. Even Baal HaSulam wrote about this, and this is even more correct today, after such a long time, after so many efforts were invested.

I am sure that we are going through a wonderful period of preparation now before the breakthrough which can occur at any moment. It is not so dependent on the events we plan in the future.

We maintain a wonderful and strong connection. The convention tied new strings of this connection between all groups, and in spite of the physical distances, the warmth is already dissipating among us. There is already a welded point that connects between us, which previously didn’t exist. This is already the beginning of the spiritual Kli (vessel or desire), which is what will maintain and save us.

We will overcome the obstacles and in so doing add new efforts to this point—and will be born.
[63457]
From the Talk during the Meal 12/17/2011

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Question: How can we link what happens in the classroom and what is happening with the world? How can we reach out to the world?

Answer: We must make efforts and take care of it as a mother does her child. Is there any other solution? You hope that some additional means will be discovered, but there are none. The equation with two desires encompasses all the laws of Nature. The communication channel between two objects, two vessels, equalizes them with each other, and in the same way they both enjoy.

The mother is a huge vessel and the baby is a tiny vessel, but the mother creates a connecting channel with the required parameters. We must act in the same manner. However, we cannot do so. An enormous inner wisdom is required to descend from one’s degree down. This is the most difficult.

I can put this or that topic in a nutshell to a person who has been studying here for five to ten years. It is another thing to “go out” and start getting closer to people. It is not easy. And that is what we should do today.

The year of mass dissemination is ahead of us, and that is why we need to pave the way, to develop a course of integral education. That does not mean just to release a few more books. We need to create an “outlet,” from which everyone can get our message, fulfill, change, and enjoy life.

We should not be limited to a formal approach: “We have done our job, the material is ready, let them take it, learn, and change.” No, we are obliged to care about humanity and provide it with all that is necessary, as baby food for the infant, as correct intravenous fluid for the patient.  It is entrusted to us.
[63598]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/11, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”

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Question: According to the Kabbalists’ prophecies, when will the majority of the nation of Israel start studying the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: This will happen when the whole world demands it. Israel cannot awaken if the world doesn’t demand it because Israel doesn’t have any need to awaken unless it is working for the whole world.

That is why we, the keepers of the method and those aware of what is happening, must disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah as quickly as possible in the whole world in all forms, whether we’re mentioning the word “Kabbalah” or not.

We must explain our states, the correction, and what we can achieve through the corrections. This will awaken people and will give them the understanding of how to correct the crisis, and as a result of this, as it is said in the Prophets, “The Nations will come and carry Israel on their hands to build the Temple.”

Without such pressure there won’t be an advancement—the nation of Israel will not feel a need in this. Before the ten plagues of Egypt, one doesn’t flee from Egypt. But we’ve got an opportunity to convert this pressure from ordinary suffering into the suffering of Love, when you yourself long for something you don’t have.

But in any case, the pressure has to be there. The Gog and Magog war has to take place in order for us to be born on the next degree. But we can cause the birth pains and the birth due to our desire to exit this world instead of being due to real birth pains—wars and suffering for the whole world.

The Prophets tell us about blows that are in store for us on nature’s part. But at the same time, we have the wisdom of Kabbalah in order for us to accept these blows as purposeful and helping the birth.

The minute I connect myself to the goal, the blows become a remedy. I don’t feel them as blows anymore. But I have to go through all the forces and all the states. However, if I change my realization and attitude towards them, I go through them with joy.

I go through it all consciously, I see the goal and I desire these blows; it’s as if I’m giving birth to myself.
[63575]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/11, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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From our life and from lessons of Kabbalists, we learn that there is no other force in the world except for the Creator ruling everything. The difference between us and the Creator is huge. He is absolutely opposite to us.

We fully consist of the desire to receive for ourselves, to enjoy and attract everything possible to ourselves—this is our nature. He, to the contrary, is a desire to bestow, to please others—this is His nature. And the purpose of creation established by Him is to bring us to His state—the highest eternal state of perfection.

The relationship between a person and the Creator is like that between an infant and a parent. If a parent wants to teach a child to walk, he shows the child how to do that: He puts the child on the floor, supports him to stand strongly on his feet, and then lets him go. A child stands in the middle of the room—he can stand, but he can’t walk yet! So he cries and doesn’t know what to do.

He gets confused and frightened that everyone left him. And he doesn’t understand that he was left alone to make a step forward! Regardless of everything, we have to do that in such way, because the child wouldn’t learn to walk without that.

And he takes one step forward—and we catch him right away. Just make one step! He almost falls forward, but before he falls, we catch him, put him on his feet and let go. And he wobbles again and doesn’t know what to do, but there is no other way—either he falls in the same spot or takes a step almost falling forward and we catch him again. Thus time after time, he learns to take steps on his own, holding onto something at first, and walking little by little afterwards.

Our world is a snapshot of the spiritual world. It is made inside of our egoism, but all the actions reflect the actions in the spiritual world, but in a reversed form. Thus through this example, we can realize what happens to us in this life and in what ways the upper force which stands in front of us all the time, teaches us to move forward to overcome the distance separating us from the Creator.

On one hand, the distance is huge. And every time we feel as an infant who doesn’t understand what’s going on and why this happened to him—where is his support and why he was left alone. Why after a good state comes such a bad state?

But if we perceive the Creator’s behavior in the right way and know how to use Him properly, we accept these not very pleasant states with love and happiness realizing that we grow through to them.
[63571]
From Lesson 4, The World Arvut Convention 12/7/11

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