Question: What is the shame that is considered to be some kind of creation?

Answer: Shame is what differentiates a human from an ape. It stems from a sense of the difference between the giver and the receiver. After that, everything depends only on the causes of the situations in which I feel myself as a giver or receiver, and according to this, I sense either perfection or shame. Shame is the opposite of perfection.

Forget everything with which you associate the word “shame” in this world. It’s totally different. It’s a sensation of separation between the giver and the receiver in spirituality. Real shame is a spiritual feeling, and material shame is always possible to mute, to hide in some way.

Real shame comes only on the condition that I feel the Creator as giving and loving, and myself as blaming, cursing Him, and desiring to steal from Him. In short, everything is the other way around! To the extent that we reveal ourselves as standing one against the other, I feel shame, and it compels me to cover myself, my egoism, and begin its correction.

Thus, shame is a particularly useful feeling for correction. That’s why it’s revealed on the condition that a person is able to correct himself. Otherwise, there’s no need. It makes no sense to shame a cat for drinking somebody else’s milk and to appeal to its conscience. The cat wouldn’t feel any shame. It can feel only that it was beaten for its action and will be afraid to repeat it next time. This means that the animal will be ruled by the fear of suffering not by shame.

Shame comes as a result of development when you sense a higher degree: how perfect it is in comparison with you, how much it loves you, and how opposite your relation to it is. And you can do nothing with yourself.

To feel this gap, a person is required to have inner intelligence, not merely the material mind and emotions. Everything depends on how much he appreciates this property of bestowal, and not in relation to himself. After all, he may feel like a baby who isn’t ashamed to receive from his mother.

Moreover, it’s only when he rises above the state of a baby with its mother and wants to feel independent. If he lacks this freedom, he feels shame. A slave who doesn’t yearn for freedom doesn’t feel shame because he belongs to his master. The one who wants to grow to be a free person starts to feel shame immediately and thus comes to freedom.
[43871]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

The goal of our development is to become similar to the force of nature, the one great integral force affecting everything. This force includes all the forces of nature that we discover in our sciences: physics, chemistry, biology, zoology, botany, geology, and astronomy. All of them are included in this single law.

This integral law that we reveal as a kind, mutual connection unites all parts of reality, which are interconnected by mutual love and bestowal. This entire system is integrated, analog, where everything except humans exists in complete harmony. In this entire system, as if in a huge sphere, there’s a part called “human” or “humanity,” which is imperfect. This is the most important part, the most developed, and at the same time imperfect because it has to realize its nature consciously.

Inanimate nature, the vegetative and animate world exist within this sphere instinctively and obey this law because they don’t reflect on how they should live. They are activated by the forces of nature that leave them no choice, no inner freedom. The forces operate them completely, and they execute nature’s commands by all 100 percent.

Whereas the human being has freedom. He is left with an empty part inside this sphere so that he would fill this emptiness with himself. Like from a piece of dough, he must sculpt a form from himself that would fit accurately in the mosaic of nature, united with all its parts by thousands of connections.

This mosaic is not flat and not even three-dimensional, but multi-dimensional and multifaceted on the psychological, psychosomatic, spiritual, and material levels; it is connected with all forms of nature in myriad ways. In our sciences we discover only a small part of the whole system of laws in this sphere. And we have to know everything.
[43740]
From the 1st lesson at the Rome Convention on 5/21/11

Filed under: Collective Soul, Conventions, Group Work, Inner Work - No Comments →

Question: In “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” Baal HaSulam writes that the will to receive in all its variations was initially included in the Thought of Creation. What does this mean?

Answer: It means that there is nothing new in the world. We merely reveal or discover what already exists. All the forms are initially included in desire; all the Lights are already present in the Light.

So what is new here? What will be born between them is Man. He will appear on the border, yearning to make the right connection between the Lights and the vessels.

But until then he needs them to be different, concealed. He will connect them himself at every degree: a bit of desire followed by a bit of Light, and again and again. It is precisely man who determines the form of their unification so that their union serves bestowal.

I take desire (as much as I can) and the Light (whatever is needed for correction), and through my efforts I create a correlation between them which ensures reception for the sake of bestowal. This is the form that will become the form of Man, comprising the vessel and the Light, the two origins: “existence from existence” and “existence from absence.” This is how man forms himself.

It follows that the great variety of the Lights and vessels is included in the original design. However, their correct connection, which is Man’s form, is not predetermined. Every time we must verify this form and demand that it be actualized.
[43877]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/2011, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Q&A - No Comments →

The science of Kabbalah revealed itself to us from time immemorial. In essence, it’s the first science discovered by humankind in the form of teaching about the structure of the world. However, much like it is today, in all previous generations, the majority of people didn’t need it because their ego was still evolving. We went through all these reincarnations, developing from generation to generation, and life seemed good. We were constantly striving to new achievements, desiring to fulfill ourselves with greater pleasures.

The wisdom of Kabbalah said thousands of years ago that this pursuit of pleasure is only a race for the internal engine working within us and it doesn’t give us true fulfillment. Everything is false; we are simply playing with our desires, with these fleeting, instantly disappearing pleasures. What’s the point in it all?

Nonetheless, people didn’t want to hear that. Only a few wondered about the meaning of life: What is the purpose of life, this race between birth and death? These few people were developing the wisdom of Kabbalah more and more. They discovered that in fact, this game which our ego, our nature, plays with us is just a deadly game; they discovered that we happened to fall into a meat grinder that grinds us, constantly pushing us to undesirable actions: either pleasures that we cannot refuse or sufferings that we try to escape from.

Thus, under the influence of these two forces, pleasure and suffering, I am constantly running like a small animal. They beat me, I run away to avoid blows. They show me pleasure, I rush to it. I end my life, filling my days with this race.

Observing such development of humanity, these people looked for a way out of this senseless race, until they discovered that this entire process has an end. They realized that we don’t live in an endless flow of life between the two forces, good and evil, in the eternal pursuit of pleasures and escape from endless suffering, trying to improve our lives and avoid evil. They found that finally we came to the completion of this development.

This completion is taking place precisely today, after a long process of human evolution. We are the first generation that, after a number of reincarnations and as a result of the development of all past generations, is beginning to understand what happens to them.

We begin to recognize that we have reached a certain satiation, and many people have become disappointed by this race. Although they don’t realize that during their whole life they are chasing after pleasures and running away from sufferings, they do feel frustration and plunge into depression. Many people are beginning to understand that this is madness, not life: to come to this world because of some race and then leave it as if they entered a casino, gambled, and left having done nothing because they were forced to run from pain and chase after pleasures.

Hence, they come to the understanding that evidently this isn’t so because nothing in nature happens without purpose. Everything in it is precisely determined by the order of cause and effect, and apparently this entire process is dictated by the law of development which should lead us to a certain goal.

Although this process is very long and seems illogical, in truth, a special inner logic is hidden in it: We must recognize the evil inherent in our nature in order to obtain the good from it. The possibility to reach this goodness appears nowadays if we accelerate the recognition of evil.

That’s why the science of Kabbalah has been revealed, so we don’t advance as before by a long and random path, in an endless choice between good and evil, every time encountering problems, solving them, and escaping to something better, but so that after many searches, having been disappointed in the previous path, we desire to see what is awaiting us and advance consciously.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is divulged for such people. The point in the heart awakens in them and doesn’t give them rest. They come to the place where they can gain knowledge about how to lay the right path for themselves, not twisting, but straight, according to the law of nature, becoming like it and using it correctly.

In essence, we aren’t sponsored or granted a miracle; we simply know the law. Instead of reaching the goal in zigzags, we go straight if we want to fulfill this law. This is a closer and easier path, but at the same time more complex. After all, we have to study and realize this law on ourselves instead of the forces of nature that knead us like dough shape us in their form. We ourselves have to participate in this, to carve out of ourselves the form required by nature. If we succeed, we give ourselves the same form that we should acquire at the end, and reach the purpose of creation.
[43743]
From the 1st lesson at the Rome Convention on 5/21/11

Filed under: Conventions, Crisis, Inner Work, Spirituality - No Comments →

The entire crisis stems from the fact that the world connects egoistically and the property of integral nature collides with the mutual hatred between all the countries and nations. Thus, if we stand between them like a force that creates a shock absorber and cushions this collision, we abate the crisis. And when these two opposites crash, softened by the buffer that absorbs the impact, they don’t hit each other with full force.

That’s why our place is honorable and located right in the middle between the positive and negative forces of nature. Being in the middle, we have to connect the entire negative force of humanity to ourselves and tie it with the positive nature of the system of creation. Our world group is that very shock absorber, the binding force.

People are talking about the imminent end of the world, but we have to complete our task. On one hand, we must establish a connection with nature, the entire system of creation, through our unity among ourselves. On the other, we have to enter the world with the dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah to everybody. We have to connect these two parts.

Our group is in the middle; the rest of humankind is on the left of us, and nature, which is in balance, is on the right. Thus, on the one hand, we have to unite together, and this will connect us to nature, to the system of creation. On the other, we have to disseminate Kabbalah in the world.

This is our predestination, and without it, the world will not reach correction. The perfect forces of nature will not be able to come to this “opposite world,” the world of uncorrected humankind, if we fail to stand between them like a buffer.

The part that we use to unite among ourselves and want to connect to nature’s perfection is called Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE), GAR de Bina. The part that we use to connect with the entire humanity is called AHP, ZAT de Bina. Thus, we unite everything into one system and enliven everything.

The balanced part of nature is Keter and Hochma. We are in the middle, in the middle third of Tifferet. AHP, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut are below us. Only we, the middle part of Tifferet, have freedom of choice. In this way, we connect all the parts of creation into the ten Sefirot.

Thus, everything depends on us. It’s not necessary to wait until the world feels and understands. Out of our love, we must help it come to this realization as much as possible. We must help not only through wide action in the media, but through our deeper understanding of the inner systems of the world and the connection between all the souls. It doesn’t depend on presidents and prime ministers, but only on us.
[43678]
From the 1st lesson at the Rome Convention on 5/21/11

Filed under: Conventions, Crisis, Group Work, Inner Work - No Comments →

Question: Kabbalah teaches that the Creator is good and does good, but how does this reconcile with life that is full of problems and pain?

Answer: The Creator is good and does good, but one has to come to this by reaching the similarity of properties with Him. However, if I am a bad, naughty child and don’t want to listen what my mother tells me, she yells at first and then punishes me. And I say that my mother is angry, as a scolded child usually would think.

Her yelling and spanking were purposeful because she wanted me to do well. How can I see that behind everything that happens to me, there is a good attitude towards me, even if I perceive it as bad, as does a child? How can I understand that namely there, where I feel bad, I need to complete myself and my attitude towards nature, humankind, and the group—to correct my ego in order to feel that it was good?

The one who strives to carry it out as soon as possible and is ready to localize the place within oneself that needs correction starts seeing that the world is actually created as good, and the Creator is good. Exactly in the same place where we now find this world, we begin to feel the revealed forces of nature which permeate everything and connect all the parts of creation: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking.

We suddenly begin to see the spiritual world instead of this one! We begin to reveal more and more forces: eternal forces that rule our existence. Then, this world seems to disappear; it becomes transparent, shaky. It’s “virtual” even now and exists in my mind, and it only appears to me that I see it outside. This is how we correct our perception.

It turns out that all your problems and troubles are an indication of your flaws; they point out the faulty spot, saying: “Correct here! And there as well!” If you do it quickly, you will certainly correct the imperfection.

If you don’t know whom to turn to, aim at the group. If you connect with them and are ready to give what they need for unity, are ready to be influenced by them, you will never make a mistake.
[43666]
From the 1st lesson at the Rome Convention on 5/21/11

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Inner Work, Perception, Q&A - No Comments →

Working in the group is extremely important. Without the group, one can’t advance. Studying theory from the authentic sources is not going to help a person in any way since he or she doesn’t change with it.

One has to put himself in a “laboratory”: work in the group, be influenced by it, time after time lower his head before it, and exalt the group in his eyes so that the friends would have an impact on him. And other times, it should be the other way around: On has to exalt himself by bestowing to the group and seeing the friends as little. This is how the work is done, mutually and in turns, depending on which of the two forces a person is employing at the moment.

My future soul is the “resistance” in the integral spiritual chain, placed between the “plus” and the “minus.” Sometimes, I work in the group by using my positive force and sometimes the negative one. Thus, there are times when I receive additional positive power from the group, and other times I get the negative one. This is how my “resistor” (R) evolves and becomes ever closer to the group, by getting engaged in it until I become its internal part.

Having entered the group, I become like a drop of semen in the womb and start growing in it. If, with all my initial egoism, I am able to cancel myself in the group as its integral part, I am regarded as an “embryo.” Immediately thereafter, my egoistic desire starts growing progressively. Thus I start going through developmental phases having renounced myself before the group.

1. The initial phase is regarded as “the nine months of conception,” which is the first stage of development. Having completed it, I get born.
2. Then, the second phase begins: My egoism grows bigger, and I cancel myself before the group ever more. But this time, I do it more proactively—I work in bestowal to others. This period of “infancy,” the small state, is called “two years of nurturing.”
3. Next, I move on to the third phase of egoistic development and reach “the age of thirteen.”
4. Beyond this point, I can gradually start employing all of my egoism in order to bestow, until I become a complete human being (Adam) at the age of 20 and on.

I undergo this entire process by using my egoism which evolves alongside my actions shown as the time line (t) in the diagram above.

Thus, practical application of the wisdom of Kabbalah entails the inclusion in the group and then into the entire world, when it takes our example and starts developing in the same way.
[43707]
From the 2nd lesson at the Rome Convention on 5/21/11

Related Material:
A Child Looking For His Spiritual Parents
The Group Is The Noah’s Ark Of Salvation
Meeting The Creator On The Bridge Of Love

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Inner Work, Love - No Comments →

If the Creator wishes to be the Creator, He needs the creature. This created being, which exists separately from the Creator and feels independent of Him, receives from and responds to the Creator, and it is considered as though it is giving back. In other words, these two have to have a certain relationship, feelings, thoughts, and interaction.

There has to be two! Therefore, it’s necessary to create a being separate of the Creator, meaning that its nature should be the will to receive pleasure—the only thing it lacks to be the creature. That is, it has to feel alive, existing, and receiving. Then, by using this desire to receive, it can become like the giver and respond to the Creator’s love in the right way.

Thus, except for the will to receive pleasure, the creature must also possess a “steering wheel” in order to turn this desire and change its direction from 100% of receiving for its own sake to 100% of receiving for the Creator’s sake. And in the rest of this interval between them, there will be various combinations between these two extremes: one part to the Creator, and the other to me.

This is what defines the entire ladder of spiritual rungs. I start with 100% for myself and gradually turn the “wheel” 180 degrees to 100% of bestowal to the Creator or other people. It doesn’t matter to whom because it’s all about how I use myself.

“I” is my desire, whereas the “steer” is my intention, meaning for the sake of whom I exert. This is what determines my state. And now the only question is at which point of this circle I am. We start at the zero point (0) and finish with the final correction (Gmar Tikkun), the state of absolute love and bestowal.

So, according to the plan of creation “to delight the creatures,” the Creator creates the necessary desire. Additionally, He gives the creature conditions which allow it to control the desire and turn itself in the direction it chooses—if I wish to “drive” to the higher rungs, on the 125 degree ladder, from the zero point of “this world” to the world of Infinity. This is how the plan of creation works.

In order to keep “driving,” I need to see the road ahead of me. I have to know what is necessary to keep driving and how to obtain “fuel.” I should know how to steer the wheel, change direction, and stay out of trouble on this path. I have to clarify for myself all of these criteria and check whether I am following them or not, if I can change and control them.

Then, I will gradually begin to see in all of these “road traffic” conditions that I am losing sight of myself ever more. I can keep driving only if I am willing for the new form to clothe in me all the time, the one that is ever closer and more similar to the Creator. Phase after phase, point after point of this trip, when I have covered another distance and advanced a bit more, I get internally transformed, and the image of the Creator clothes in me ever more. This means that I am “driving” and getting closer to Him.

Consequently, we need to make our desire to enjoy ready for such transformations, to assume such forms of the upper one. This implies the restriction of the will to receive and annulment of one’s egoistic intention, until it starts to obtain the forms of bestowal, the Creator’s forms, getting closer to Him ever more.
[43608]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work - No Comments →

Development occurs by virtue of the “electric” force that circulates in the system. When I connect into it with the two forces I have, the egoistic and altruistic ones, its force starts circulating through me as well. In that case, the system is working with me, and I feel the “current” that permeates its entirety; I discover its program and purpose and get engaged in it ever more.

Thus we ascend the spiritual degrees, rising back toward the unified Force. Plus and minus, positive and negative, unify, and we find our eternal life and the final purpose of our existence. This is the program.

This allows us to see the cause of the crisis and its consequences. We understand why we didn’t receive the wisdom of Kabbalah and didn’t discover the group until our egoism had grown to the limits. Only now do we feel, day to day, how everything is changing around. So many things are happening in the world, all of which are devised to reveal the crisis and demonstrate our desperate plight as well as the hopelessness and lack of understanding prevailing in the world. Day by day, at a rapid pace, we’ll be making steps on this path.

Hence, very soon, we will need to show to the world that we understand the plan of creation. Obviously, we do not know all of it since we attain it by climbing the rungs of development. And yet, we do know how to carry it out and how to begin this process. As to the rest, we study it as we go.

Among us, there aren’t individuals who have reached the finish line, which wouldn’t make a difference anyway. Essentially, we learn from Kabbalists who told us about this entire process, the whole human history. Besides, they gave us this information millennia ago, but to this day, their words still keep coming true.

Therefore, we need only to hear what laws to obey in order to quickly become part of the integral system. As soon as I reveal myself as being such part, all the laws start working through me. I begin to understand and experience what is going on in our world. I see right through it, the forces that run through me; I discover what’s causing them as well as the essence of their work.

It is written: “From Your actions we will know You.” The wisdom of Kabblah is a purely practical method that I apply solely on myself. I don’t study any insects under a microscope, nor do I study the external world. On the contrary, I reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah and all creation in general on myself. No science is more practical and experiential than Kabbalah.

Kabbalists explain what laws are to be followed in order for us to become an active part of a greater whole. After all, humanity is merely a small part of the enormous system of the world of Infinity. They talk about simple laws that we need to observe in the group. We must structure it as a mini-model of an integral, immense reality so that within this model we would look for an opportunity and strive to perform according to the ground laws of creation pertaining to our egoism and the positive creative Force.

Then the group will become a “construction area” for me, a sort of “laboratory” where I examine the friends and myself, where we, all together and among ourselves, work, build, create, and shape the future world, the upper world, and humanity of tomorrow. Our acts are in sync with what Kabbalists advise, and we act solely experimentally, by testing and verifying the results of our work.
[43710]
From the 2nd lesson at the Rome Convention on 5/21/11

Related Material:
Energy That Will Save The World
An Invitation To Rise To The Next Degree
The System That Connects You With Infinity

Filed under: Conventions, Crisis, Group Work, Inner Work, Spirituality - No Comments →

Question: What is so special about The Book of Zohar? Why is it so popular and why do people consider it to be the source of the greatest power?

Answer: Baal HaSulam writes that The Book of Zohar is the greatest and most revealing Kabbalistic composition of all time. After all, ten Kabbalists that were suitable for creating a single vessel (Kli) got together to write this book. They connected into the ten Sefirot on the level of the final correction (Gmar Tikkun), in all 125 degrees by which the soul must ascend in order to obtain its final correction.

They ascended to the state of the final correction (Gmar Tikkun) and from there wrote about this revelation. This is why this book is called The Zohar, the highest “radiance” (Zeira Ilaa) there is.

This book is written as a commentary to the five books of the Torah. All that has been revealed by the great Kabbalists from the time of the First Temple to the time of the Second Temple is presented in this book on the level of the final correction. Also, it was written in a very unique way: Rabbi Shimon spoke, Rabbi Aba wrote it down, and all the others shared their revelations. This means that it gives descriptions through various points of views, and for this reason it suits all souls that will ever reveal it and wish to correct themselves by means of the Light that Reforms.

The story of this book is unique and tragic. It was concealed for a long time and only became revealed in the 11th century in Spain, thanks to Rabbi Moshe de Leon, then followed a few more stages of its concealment and revelation, until the appearance of Baal HaSulam in the 20th century.

During that time, the return to the land of Israel began and all Kabbalists began to feel that the time had come for the realization of The Book of Zohar, meaning for the correction of the souls and coming out of the final exile to the final redemption. This is why Baal HaSulam received permission to write a commentary to this book called “Sulam” (ladder).

The Book of Zohar is “caged behind a thousand locks” and locked with many different keys; it is written in such a way that a regular person can’t even touch it. You can buy it and read it, but you won’t know what to do with it and how to use it correctly. Through his four introductions written to this book and the “Sulam” commentary, after which he received his name, Baal HaSulam hands us the key, defines how to reveal and view this book.

From this moment we can really say that we received The Book of Zohar in order to realize it. It becomes the source of great Light that we can use day after day.
[43619]
From the program on Lag B’Omer on 5/17/11

Filed under: Inner Work, Q&A, Zohar - No Comments →