Question: When we speak about love of others, it seems trivial to most people. How can we convey our message to them?

Answer: Don’t talk to them about love of others. Instead, explain the laws of the integral system that demand a stronger mutual connection between us. The separation in humanity is growing and so is the need for connection. This is why we feel worse and worse.

These are simple things that can be presented by a linear diagram. Every day, we need to increase the connection between us. By 6,000 years, we will have to unite all of our desires. Today, we are being required to connect at a certain level, let’s say, X₂. In the year 2012, the requirement will rise to the level of X₃. If we don’t reach this level, we will experience suffering according to our incompatibility with nature.

Today, we experience a crisis, a fall, and it is perfectly natural. However, we can reverse the trend if we raise our level of unity. If we do that, we will feel a rise instead of a fall. It all depends on us.

We have the wisdom of Kabbalah that was meant to develop the recognition of evil in us. Indeed, the more we lag behind, the more separated we become. The Light increases, while we are more detached and disconnected, and this makes us feel worse and worse.

The Light lets us feel the global and integral world that is mutually connected in all of its parts. Accordingly, we gradually feel that we are becoming more and more opposite to the integral world. So, we are not speaking about love, but about the laws of nature, about its development.

After the December convention, we will see that the world will be deteriorating much faster. On our part, we will be able to hasten the development in a positive way, and we must make every effort to achieve that.
[62073]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/2011, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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At the lessons, among other things, we learn about the structure and the interconnection of the spiritual worlds, Partzufim, and Sefirot. A question arises: Why do I need to learn this? After all, I only need to attract the Light that reforms upon myself?

Even if no Kabbalistic books have been published in my own language, I can sit in the lesson and listen to the reading of The Book of Zohar without understanding the words. This is truly enough. Baal HaSulam, for example, had a few students who did not know Yiddish, the language in which he taught.

However, something else is being concealed here. As we advance, we begin to feel, to discern, various spiritual phenomena inside of ourselves. So, what do we do with this? This is why a person studies the wisdom of Kabbalah in the form of his internal, spiritual psychology. Thanks to it, everything joins together into one picture.

Of course, it does not happen right away, but still, a person gradually discovers within himself what he has studied in the lessons. In the same way that a child studies a language, he remembers words, associates them with objects and events, and then brings meaning to each word, including a wide spectrum of shades, details, and perceptions.

That is why we have to know the material and to study the language of the science of Kabbalah that describes our deep psychology. As Baal HaSulam says, it is very important to enter into Kabbalah from the side of materialistic psychology as well. This is how we study ourselves, starting with the animate level and proceeding to the human one.

Clearly, we do not need a university course on psychology. This would only add to the confusion. However, when we come to the wisdom of Kabbalah, it is worth it to search within ourselves for those details of perception that it talks about.
[61752]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/2011, “Preface to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: I have different feelings while studying the wisdom of Kabbalah. How can I know that they are real, not fantasy?

Answer: Our only spiritual criterion is the group. I must see the collection of our desires. I want everyone to be connected by the power of mutual guarantee, above corporeal life. Let it flow as usual; after all, I am born, live, and die against my will.

However, here we are talking about man’s basic yearning, about the higher degree where we must connect. I check myself in relation to that common power. That way, I have a scale by which to determine what spirituality is. All other “pictures” are imaginary and mistaken.

On the other hand, if I can’t imagine the collective force that dwells in the group, it is an accurate indication as to how far I have diverted from the spiritual direction. People imagine spirituality in all sorts of strange forms, while the only support, the only spiritual essence for us is the collective power of the group. Otherwise, you will not be able to picture anything correctly.

This should help you understand how wrong your approach has been thus far. You pictured spirituality in a completely different way. It drew you in different directions, except for this one. So hold on to the right course and each time adjust it only in the direction of the group. It makes no difference what we read or study, it is all aimed toward our unity, and nothing but that.

Even if you hate someone, it still has nothing to do with good or evil as the Torah describes it. This is because the Torah only speaks about the unity of friends in the group. Take the shell off spiritual essence, detach yourself from home, family, work, and the rest of the world, and leave only the powers that we want to connect in your perception.

You are looking only for the collective power in the study and friends, and you should interpret every word of the wisdom of Kabbalah through the prism of this concept. Only thus will you be able to advance in the best possible way. Any other form of advancement will lead you through the path of suffering.
[61738]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/2011, “Preface to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: How can I concentrate my powers and not spend them on foreign causes? All disturbances come from the Creator, so how can we fight with them?

Answer: Of course, all disturbances come from the Creator so that we will better understand ourselves and advance more efficiently. They are only called disturbances. We don’t understand that they are actually advice that helps us advance correctly. If we listened more carefully to what is called “the Creator’s voice,” we would advance more quickly toward the goal.

The problem is that we don’t hear Him, and we don’t notice that He is constantly talking to us. The system of forces that we are in, the field of forces, the general bestowal, the power that created us, constantly continues to influence us. However, it does so only up to a certain limit so that I will listen to Him, at least a little, so that I will notice Him. Then, I will understand what He is saying.

This is how we are built. The Creator is on the edge of our feelings, of our perception. He demands that we only increase our sensitivity a bit so that we will begin to feel Him.

The sensitivity is increased when I understand that “there is none else besides Him.” Everything that He wants to say is in my favor, and He is good and benevolent at any given moment, good or bad. If I knew that, I would bless the evil just as the good because there is no evil.

If I felt that way, if I could understand it, I would constantly look for what He is trying to tell me by my present state. There is a group around me, a family, the entire world, internal and external problems and worries, good and bad, but what does He want to tell me by all that? How can I balance myself in the complicated situation that I am in?

Kabbalists tell you what to do: How to direct yourself in order to try to feel the Creator and to aim yourself accordingly. This means that you discover the Light that reforms, and according to the level of your feelings and understanding, you begin to arrange your internal attributes, feelings, and desires.
[61735]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/2011, Writings of Rabash

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It used to be that only those wanting to know the meaning of life and its purpose would come to Kabbalah. They wondered what we are born for, why we die, and why we undergo such difficulties in life.

A person wants to know, and even if well-off in the material sense, he will continue having these questions because they come from the speaking, not animate degree. Man is not a dog; if we put him in a five-star hotel, he’ll still feel bad and want something more for the soul.

This is clearly seen in Europe. Before the crisis erupted, the most developed and affluent countries had the highest suicide rate. Now that these countries are experiencing a crisis, the suicide rate will drop. People will begin to appreciate life and new desires will awaken. Even a slight desire for improvement will give people a sense of life.

No matter what degree of wealth a person has, taste is always felt through contrast. People like to remember past suffering of hunger and the taste they found in a stale piece of bread because the taste depends on the deficiency.

Today Kabbalah is for everyone, not only for those wishing to attain sublime wisdom, but for all simply seeking a better life. The crisis has spread worldwide. Evil has become global, not local or national as in previous generations. And because of it, people seek to discover the cause of this evil.

Past generations also suffered greatly, but it was suffering on the still, vegetative, and animate (bodily) levels. However, today’s problems are worldwide and affect everyone, therefore it forces people to search for answers. That is why people come to Kabbalah to improve their situation. But here they are met with an explanation summed up in one sentence: You can only enjoy bestowal, only out of love of others!

A person would like to enjoy thousands of different things in this world, but is told: Sorry, the party is over, and you will not be able to enjoy it. In fact, before this, enjoyment was only being used as bait, to awaken you in order to increase your desire. To do this, you were given entertainment, cars, trips, and various other temptations so that you would want to enjoy more and more.

But now it’s all over. You will not have an opportunity to enjoy. The crisis will deprive you of all material acquisitions, and nothing will be left. Yet on the other hand, you already cease to feel any pleasure. Even if you could pay and enjoy all that is possible, you will not feel the taste in anything.

This is the stage of development we are approaching without even knowing it, and in the end it turns out that we are not able to enjoy. This is the real problem of the world! Everything is in full abundance, and we’re able to reach such material prosperity where everyone has everything needed: homes, vacations, good food, and so on. But people will not find taste in this kind of life.

We are nearing a state where satisfaction can only be collective, global. The mutual connection among us that is being revealed now is not in money but in pleasure! I will not be able to receive pleasure before I fill you.

But I hate you and am ready to tear you apart! How could it be that I will fill you before I fill myself? It means that I have to love you first? It is simply awful! Yet, without that I can’t enjoy life or feel, at least a little bit, that I have something more than a dog’s life. A dog’s life is a life in which I only satisfy my desire, but feel no taste. I have everything all day long, but feel as if I have nothing.

These states are being revealed to us because the human level of desire is being revealed within us, which is higher than the still, vegetative, and animate levels. Thus, we can have everything in the material world and feel that death is better than this kind of life.
[61747]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Man’s essence is the desire to be filled. His mind develops alongside this desire to help him attain that which is desired. Man’s big desires develop a big mind, while his small desires limit the mind. The mind is secondary; the desire is primary. This is why the desire commands us, whether we like it or not.

The aspiration to experience the world on a greater scale than it really is, in its full matrix, depends on the development of our desire. This is why we study the wisdom of Kabbalah. It helps develop the desire to the point where it is possible to perceive the upper world, the higher matter, the higher qualities.

Since our world only exists in the desire to receive, it is confined and limited. How much information, sensation, feeling, color, sound, and so forth can I absorb? It turns out it is not much at all since I immediately become filled and tired. I even try to limit myself from extreme reception and suffice myself with small pleasures.

Kabbalists tell us that there is an enormous world beyond the limits of our sensations, which exists outside of us, outside our egoistic sensations. We can only experience it according to the law of similarity of properties. If we acquire the same qualities like in that world, we will see, hear, and feel it.

How do we acquire the qualities of this external world that is a billion times greater than ours? First of all, this world goes beyond the limits of our physical body. This is why it is eternal, perfect, and infinite. It is not even like our finite, imperfect, and egoistic universe.

The world that exists in the quality of bestowal, and which we absolutely do not perceive, basically exists around us. In order to perceive it, we need to begin coming closer to the quality of bestowal, the foundation of the upper world. This is the purpose of the exercises and advice of the Kabbalists who have already completed this path.

These are group exercises because one gradually develops the quality of bestowal only in a group of like-minded people. I begin to feel how deeply I exist in egoism and my inability to come out of it. Then, under the influence of the group, I get the feeling that I simply am in a prison I can’t escape. Then I understand that only the group, only the upper force, can help me.

In this way, I reach the need for mutual guarantee. I am in need of the support of my friends who simply force me to rise above myself, and on my behalf, I also try to help them with this. We reach mutual guarantee when we mutually help each other to rise above ourselves and connect into the common quality of bestowal.

Then we will perceive the upper world in this new, common quality, a sensor, a sense. We can only perceive it if we create something mutual with our desires and aspirations because the quality of bestowal cannot be individual. It is necessarily connected with all the rest, and this is why it is one for all. This quality in which we will perceive our higher existence is called the “soul.”

This is why the convention in the Arava desert was directed toward preparing oneself for a preliminary sensation of the quality of bestowal that is being conceived in us. We must bring this to all the participants of the big upcoming convention where it will be necessary for everyone to strengthen it together. We must develop this embryo to the point where we will perceive the presence of the upper world, the presence of the Creator.
[61625]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/20/2011

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Question: What does it mean to direct all our thoughts and desires toward the Creator? How can we incorporate the Creator into this entire process?

Answer: First, we have to do everything in our power to connect in order to feel unity. We should constantly feel this unity above all the disturbances we experience in our thoughts and desires. No matter what I do, I do it feeling that the group is inside me. If you can, try to imagine that the Creator also fills us and is inside us.

I warn you: We will not be able to hold on to the state of unity felt during the convention much longer. More serious obstacles will arise, and I won’t be able to connect to the friends and will surely forget about the Creator.

These problems are given to me on purpose so that I will try to attach myself to the group and ask the Creator for help, demand that He carries out our connection. The Creator is the attribute of bestowal and love, and I want the attribute of bestowal to dwell among us.

If we don’t see ourselves as corporeal bodies, but rather close our eyes and feel the field in which we share a common sensation, then the one who stabilizes, fills, and sustains this feeling, the main force that arranges, creates, and maintains all this is called “the Creator.”

The force of bestowal existing in creation is the Creator, His front side, and the force of reception in creation is His back side. And I am the black point of “existence from absence (Yesh Mi Ain)” situated in this force field of bestowal and reception.
[62862]
From the st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Spiritual work focuses on the unification between us and the merger with the upper force that shapes us. How can I quickly, correctly, and effectively unite the three factors: myself, the group, and the Creator? To achieve this, Kabbalists wrote their books for us. In reality, these books are intended for them so they can share impressions and unite with each other.

When I read a book written by a Kabbalist, he reveals to me what he has discovered himself. Of course, he writes not about the material world, but about his spiritual attainment, about various spiritual states, and while reading, I also experience them.

In our world, reading fiction, I imagine myself as the hero living through the described situation. However, reading a Kabbalah book, a Kabbalist does not fantasize, but experiences the appropriate spiritual state, feeling the same as the author. In his time, the author revealed some reality, and now I enter it, describing it within myself by means of spiritual forces.

Kabbalists could limit themselves to the technical language of symbols, like programmers who write codes in “computer language.” Sometimes, we see those “hieroglyphs” on the screen and cannot comprehend them. Indeed, nothing else is required. After all, I only need to know how to combine my desires: in what form of bestowal, relative to whom and to what. Accordingly, I describe a particular state. I perceive a picture of reality within myself, in my desires and thoughts, and it can be described in a simple way.

The Book of Zohar is different. It is written in a poetic language and addresses our feelings, using the concepts of our world and its psychology. We should not forget that we actually talk about the spiritual world, about our inner reality, how we are united with each other. Any state described in The Book of Zohar shows me how I, the group, and the Creator unite together again. This is the only thing one should think about while reading The Zohar, and then the book will definitely help us reveal the relationships at the higher degrees.
[62850]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/2011, The Zohar

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Starting now we must strengthen that which we have attained; we must grow the unity that was born between us at the convention. This point must multiply. Even though it appears to be overwhelming and never-ending in the beginning of the journey, in reality it is not so. The spiritual stages are much shorter that the first, preliminary stage.

When we rise from Malchut and merge with Zeir Anpin, the spiritual power intensifies sixty times, and when Zeir Anpin rises to YESHSUT, it creates six hundred times stronger intensity. Every new degree includes the ten Sefirot and adds a position, increases our might by a power of ten: six thousand, sixty thousand, and so on.

Moreover, we must not forget that the entire world needs the spiritual ascent. We must convey the method of correction to humanity, the method of universal unity. We must correct the crisis in this world, which will be expanding, seizing everyone without exception, to the very last village, the very last corner of the world. It will manifest in every family and in every person. This multi-crisis will touch on every area of human activity.

And this is why all of us will have to work in the role of mentors, disseminators of the method. The crisis will not stop until the entire world enters a mutual interconnection, until everyone becomes like we are now. We assume that this is impossible, but in reality, it will be much easier for the world to do than for us. Desires and ideas are easier to spread in large masses, down the threads of the inner interconnection. The collective soul did not go anywhere: We are separated only in our sensations. People will understand us very quickly, come closer, and connect with us.

The main thing right now is to strengthen the feeling of unity which appeared at the convention. These are the actual spiritual gates. There are new people among us who have simply enjoyed being with their friends. There are people who feel something greater, people who already manifest this feeling of a spiritual revelation, the first attainment and not just a union. And there are some who have advanced even further. We represent a full spectrum, and I am very happy about these variations in the collective vessel. This means that it lives and develops.

Now you just need to strengthen it, and you’ll see that it will be relatively easy. We need to protect our unity at least a little bit, despite the disturbances. We will return back home, and most important is to keep what was attained.

I stay close to my friends despite the distance and watch the world from aside. I sit on a plane or a train, and the entire world is outside my window. Everything flows by me on the outside, but what matters to me is what is happening on the inside. This inner flame is more important than anything else, more important than life. I put all things in their places, distribute them according to the scale of values, and then the key is to remain on top, at the tip of the pyramid, in the feeling I have attained. I am even prepared to die with it because eternity is concealed in it.
[62792]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/9/2011, “600,000 Souls”

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Rabash, Letter 8: And as soon as I acquire the quality of bestowal, sparks of love promptly begin to shine within me.

At first we acquire the power of bestowal, the Light of Hassadim (Mercy), and then the Light of love, the Light of Hochma (Wisdom), dresses in it.

The heart begins to long to unite with my friends, and it seems to me that my eyes see my friends, my ears hear their voices, my mouth speaks to them, the hands embrace, the feet dance in a circle in love and joy together with them, and I transcend my corporeal boundaries. I forget the vast distance between my friends and me, and the outstretched land for many miles will not stand between us.

It is as though my friends are standing right within my heart and see all that is happening there, and I become ashamed of my petty acts against my friends. Then, I simply exit the corporeal vessels and it seems to me that there is no reality in the world except my friends and me. After that, even the “I” is cancelled and is immersed, mingled in my friends, until I stand and declare that there is no reality in the world—only the friends.

Rabash writes this from spiritual attainment. This is exactly how we attain spiritual reality: There is nothing in it from our current perception—only our friends. Besides, this does not refer to the faces that stand before my eyes today, but a special inner force found in my friends, a unique spark that every one of them has received from Above. These sparks are the friends of my spark. We unite them into a group.

Rabash, Letter 40: And when one begins to feel the love of his friend, joy and pleasure immediately begin to awaken in him… His friend’s love for him is a new thing for him…

He suddenly reveals it, but before he did not know, did not believe in it, was not ready to accept it. Our problem is not as much to love our friend, but to feel the love from him. We also resist this love because it imposes certain obligations on us. However, when I discover a new feeling a friend has for me, I can no longer ignore it. This way my friend begins to “buy” me, attach me to him.

…he always knew that he was the only one who cared for his own well being. But the minute he discovers that his friend cares for him, it evokes within him immeasurable joy, and he can no longer care for himself…

He can no longer continue caring for his needs as before. It is written in the article “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)” that when I am sure, when I feel that others love me, I stop being concerned with myself, unreservedly.

This is not just an addition of strength, which allows me to make a new calculation and stop thinking about myself. The moment I feel how much my friends love me, I fully reject self-love. I seem to forget about myself; I stop perceiving myself. Love that comes from the outside, from my friends, takes over me, and carries me out of my own limitations—to them.

… and he can no longer care for himself since man can toil only where he feels pleasure. And since he is beginning to feel pleasure in caring for his friend, he naturally cannot think of himself.

It is inevitable: If I want to help my friend to not care for himself, I must show him that I take care of all his needs. In this case he rejects himself “by definition.” This way I take him out of his egoism.

Instruction or traditional education will not help here. Man must be given love; this will absolutely disconnect him from his own needs.

But can love awaken a desire in man to reject his own reality? It is written: “Love breaks the habitual.” Love does not obey the mind. And only when there is this kind of love from friends, then everyone lives in a world that is all good, with no concerns for themselves. Man feels how he acquires the quality of bestowal, and then according to the law of equivalence of form, he forever unites with the upper one, the perfect Giver….

This refers to the most powerful force in nature, to working with love in two directions. It is possible to control our life from two sides and obligate man to love by displaying love for him in a certain way, even without an opposite force of pressure and suppression.

Love comes to us from the Creator the same way, but it is as if He guides us down the spiritual path with two “reins”: suffering and pleasure. They both come from love. Thus, if I wish to help someone, this can only be done by multiplying my love. This way I obligate a person towards everything that is required.

This is why it is written: “Buy yourself a friend.” It says “buy,” meaning always give him love, and you will see how he will become attached to you. You “acquire” him, you become soldered together, and you beget the same response in him. At the end each of us becomes included in the other.

And when all the friends become included in the others, every one of them receives a complete vessel of Infinity, a complete soul. This way we do not only attain our individual root, but also the entire Malchut of the world of Infinity with all the Lights of NRNHY, the most powerful force in the entire reality.
[62781]
From Lesson 8, The World Arvut Convention 12/8/2011

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