Question: What does it mean to be inspired by the group?

Answer: To be inspired means to open your eyes, ears, all five of your senses, and most importantly, the inner sense—“the point in the heart” in order to feel the spirit that exists in the group.

When I come up to the roof where you are working now and preparing the equipment for the convention, I feel that there is a certain spirit, some common force that is engaged in preparing for a spiritual ascent.

The fact is that this is joint work, joint aspiration, anticipation of and preparation for a great, powerful gathering, for which there are no analogous equals in the world according to strength, power, and level of ascent. Approximately ten thousand people will go through enormous spiritual ascent over these three days; they will place themselves under the influence of the upper Light. We should try to feel that we are in the group using all the strings of our soul; we should try to be in that spirit, in that common force that is present there.

Actually, independent of us, our group already has its own, common component—an integral that includes us all. However, each of us needs to perform a slight effort and dissove in this. When a person is able to do this, he will feel this state.

For this purpose, a week ago we went to the desert and attempted to carry our our first unification there. As I felt, it was very successful. Many people who have been working on themselves, studying and implementing Kabbalah for many years, for the first time felt that there is some spiriutal component, which we can find among us, in our unity.

It has already been revealed between us, and now we need to try to find it. Now everything depends on how much we will try to constantly be in this state—in the single force of the group. Precisely by delving into it, we will feel the upper force, the Creator, and in unification with Him we will begin to feel the upper world. All this is the next stage, which is very close. In this regard, everything depends on the inner, emotional effort of a person.
[62363]
Fundamentals of Kabbalah Lesson 11/27/11

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Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of Religion and It’s Purpose”: It turns out that our final aim is to be qualified for adhesion with Him—for Him to reside within us. That aim is a certainty and there is no way to deviate from it, since His guidance supervises us in both paths, which are the path of suffering and the path of Torah.

There is an upper force that has created the desire to receive and has raised it. It gave the desire everything it needs to grow, but when it grew, it suddenly discovered that it feels bad, and that it actually doesn’t get what it desires. In its youth, while it was growing up everything was fine: It got everything that it desired. Then it desired more and received it. But now when it is grown, everything is different; it doesn’t get the filling automatically. On the contrary, the more it wants, the less it receives. So the desire thinks to itself: “Who or what is the cause of this bad feeling?”

Humanity is divided into several categories when it comes to this question. There are those ninety-nine percent who simply go on, attracted from the bad to the good, enjoying life as much as they can. There are those who go out searching for the truth, meaning looking for the reason for what is happening.

Humanity is trying to explain this contrast in the leadership that changes so dramatically when a person grows up. At first everyone treats him nicely until the real change comes and now everyone demands something from him and treats him badly. This contrast and this conflict are very confusing, and so there are those who begin to look for a solution. The upper force that has created the desire to receive and that has raised it to a great egoism can eventually bring it to the right state.

There are two forces that operate in reality and help us reach that state: there is the pulling force and the pushing force. The egoistic desire loves pleasures and hates suffering. In other words, it loves the filling and hates the emptiness. So it can be managed by these two states. When it is emptied, it runs away looking for a filling. When it is filled, it is drawn to it. By using these two reins we can do whatever we want with it.

But what’s the use if the desire totally obeys the Creator’s reins? After all, the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels develop this way, so what’s the need for creation? After all, in this way there is no uniqueness and man is also led by pleasures and suffering in life. The originality and the uniqueness of creation, of the worlds, among the created beings can only be revealed in unique creatures that can operate between these two “reins.”

This means even if the desire totally obeys the upper guidance and has nowhere to run, as the forces totally surround him even if they are concealed. The main thing is that these creatures want to attain the actions: What are they? What are they for? Which desires do they affect? They want to attain their own system by themselves and according to it they begin to understand who manages their desires. Thus, according to the principle of “we know You by Your actions,” they attain the operating mind, the force that operates in creation.

So when we grow and discover the two forces that operate upon us, the positive force and the negative one, when we see the “reins” that control our running, it’s a good sign. It means that we have moved from the ninety-nine percent to the one unique per cent, for which creation was meant.

When we discover the Creator’s bestowal in the form of suffering and pleasure, good and bad, coldness and heat, hunger and satiation, we should understand that it’s all in order to make us aware that the Creator is the Absolute Good. The wisdom of Kabbalah is the wisdom for the revelation of the Creator, for the revelation of His actions. Therefore, we constantly study ourselves: “Who am I and what am I? All of reality including the group is inside me.” Eventually I discover that deep inside me it’s the Creator, the Absolute Good that operates inside me.
[61976]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/11

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Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of Religion and its Purpose“: He has created the creatures only to bestow upon them. Thus we learn that He has only a desire to bestow goodness, and it is utterly impossible that any harmfulness might be in His domain, which could emit from Him. Hence we have defined Him as “The Absolute Good.”

It is hard to accept this. After all we are living in our egoistic desire which has serious complaints about the source, the Creator, nature, or other things. The world in which I feel myself summons many complaints. Internally I can’t accept the fact that everyone else doesn’t obey me. I can’t accept the fact that infinite pleasure doesn’t constantly fill me. I only encounter problems all the time, so how can I accept the fact that the One who runs the world is good and benevolent?

If I could create the world by myself, I would do it in a totally different way: Everything that is in it would only be to serve me. But the world is the opposite, everyone sees it right to complain about creation. So on what grounds can we speak about the Creator as the Absolute Good? On the basis that He is the first and primordial.

The desire to receive was created and is prompted by abundance, by bestowal. The abundance, the bestowal, doesn’t need any preliminary factor. Therefore the term “first” can be characterized by one world only: wholeness. In other words, the “first” cannot have any deficiencies, no matter what. The wholeness generates only one deficiency: to expand the wholeness. Here there is also a big problem: Where does the Creator get such a desire from? Does He really lack anything? Yes, He lacks bestowal, giving.

Can we see it as a deficiency? Unfortunately we can’t grasp these concepts now. They are perceived as lack of evidence, since we lack the feeling, the understanding, and the acceptance. There is nothing we can do here, since until we enter the spiritual world we will not know how to check and how to measure them, not to mention of how to feel them. It will always be a “lame” explanation, so we can accept it to a certain extent, but not completely. We can’t understand that the Creator is the Absolute Good, and we can’t reach that without the influence of the environment that can provide us with everything that we need including that.

So if we eventually perceive our source as the Absolute Good, we have to see that all the problems and the defects are in us. We still have to reach this conclusion, and then another question will come up, are we all corrupt? Or are all the defects in me while the others are in a state of wholeness like the Creator?

My examination becomes more clarified. When I admit that it is only me who is imperfect, I begin to clarify: Where exactly am I not whole, in which desires, which relationships? And is it only in relation to the world? Or is it in relation to myself as well, with the group, with the Creator? And so I advance and go deeper and deeper and my examination always reveals the imperfection compared to the whole.

The greatest division is that the Creator is whole and we are not. In the second stage, I draw the line between myself and the perfect reality. Then I perform the next examination, according to the revelation of the vessels.
[61859]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/27/11, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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Question: Can we get rid of the beliefs if we need to believe in something that we haven’t attained yet?

Answer: Abraham attained his degree after he had shattered all the idols. In the second degree he went into the “furnace.” At these stages a person detaches himself from all the imaginary connections between the “beastly” reality that he discovers in his five senses and the spiritual reality.

This is very difficult. You cannot get rid of the myths, the habits, and the prejudices completely until you enter the spiritual world. Having no choice, a person still imagines spirituality parallel to corporeality, which rules his desires, his attributes, and his feelings.

Only the revelation of the Light can help a person get rid of all the imaginings and the mystical images to which he is accustomed. Until then the “angels” and the “devils,” the “ghosts,” the Creator and the created being, the “halls” and the “heavens” will still be depicted as something external. Even if he understands that they are all forces, he still thinks that they operate on the outside and not inside him. He simply hasn’t discovered them inside of him yet.

So I have to bring them into me, to identify them as the forces of my soul. There is nothing else besides them, including what I feel now, including the group, reality, the Creator. I feel all this in my desires. I have no perception outside them. But we can live in this internal image only if we reach revelation. Only then will our attitude towards philosophy, beliefs, and myths and the wrong perceptions that we got used to change, but not before.

In the meantime a person can tie a red string around his wrist, meditate and imagine different things and even feel good by doing so, but only in the short term, on the corporeal level. He calms himself psychologically and acquires an imaginary sense of security….

But we are speaking about the real perception, about a qualitative internal change, when we correct ourselves and rise and thanks to this treat our problems correctly. After all, they come so that I will identify them and immediately change my attitude from receiving to bestowal.

But instead, I buy holy water and give to charity, etc. In other words I don’t correct the reason for the wrong that I feel in one of my desires, but rather buy myself a psychological compensation if I have the money for that, of course. This is absolutely contrary to the wisdom of Kabbalah, which points out the great harm that such methods are causing by only drawing a person away form correction
[61853]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/27/11

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We should all be thinking about nullifying ourselves and only caring about others because in this way we attain the Creator. Contrary to the assumption of many, we shouldn’t be concerned with caring for physical bodies. There are many methods and spiritual practices dedicated to this in our world. However, Kabbalah speaks of the type of love for one’s fellow that allows a person to rise above his egoism and obtain a connection that’s above it.

This shouldn’t be confused with “altruistic” societies that help the poor and the sick. They think that by doing so they are correcting the world that the Creator “ruined.” We see that such action only makes things worse. This is contradictory to human reasoning. But then again, we gradually begin to see that our mind doesn’t agree with anything.

We shouldn’t be concerned with fulfilling one’s egoistic desires, but think only of love toward our fellow man. It is only in this way that we’ll be able to sense the need for obtaining a new quality of love and bestowal through which we obtain love for the Creator.

It becomes clear now why we need so many different people around us that have nothing in common with one another, each one existing in his own egoistic desire and love for one’s self. All of this is given to us so that we can apply our own effort in revealing the Creator.

There is no distance between the Creator and me. This distance appears only as a result of the distance between me and another person. By erasing the distance between myself and others, I erase the distance between myself and the Creator. My first contact with a friend is my first contact with the Creator. The more that I begin to connect with others (not through the physical bodies, but only through the points in the heart which is above my egoistic desire), the more I begin to reveal the Creator and to unite with Him.
[62150]
From Lesson 2, Arvut Convention in the Arava Desert 11/18/2011