As we ascend the spiritual degrees, we experience different contradictory, confusing states when we do not understand anything. It happens that you as if completely lose your mind. After all, when you go from one state to another, your desire changes.

The mind is acquired together with the desire; it only serves the desire. The greater the desire, the more your mind grows to serve it, to help it get fulfilled. This is the way we operate.

When your desire becomes replaced with another one, you acquire a new desire, and your previous mind disappears. And between degrees you feel as if all the information was deleted from your “computer,” and you no longer know how to operate. They say that Baal Shem Tov even forgot letters and had to learn to read “from the beginning.”

This is a special state. This way man is being shown that he is just a machine. A desire disappears, memory disappears, and you feel that you no longer know how to do the simplest hand or leg movements, not to mention having to remember the names of people or things that happen around you.

This can appear to be a mental abnormality. But at the same time, a person understands and feels that all of this is happening to him; he as though analyzes himself from aside. There is a point where you feel: “This is happening to me. Look at me! Right now I am an empty vessel that lacks sensations and mind. I will receive a new sensation and mind!”

This is an absolute replacement. You acquire a new “computer,” and you need to load it with new programs; everything has to be done from the beginning. This is how we advance.
[30691]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Until unity becomes a vital need, it will not come to life. We have two options: Either we emphasize the importance of unity among us, or all our other actions except unification will still bring the Light that Reforms, but it will be affecting us negatively, by demonstrating to us how disconnected we are. Then, we will finally unite out of necessity, as a result of pain and suffering.

Suppose I don’t wish to maintain my health and gradually ruin my organism until I start feeling that it is in trouble. This feeling forces me to begin the rehabilitation of my body.

Neither do we in the group maintain spiritual health; we don’t maintain unity. However, we do study, circulate Kabbalah, and perform various different kinds of actions. These acts draw the Light that Reforms. In the end, it will show us what the problem is. If we were not doing all this, we wouldn’t feel there is a problem. So, there is a certain benefit to it: It will help us realize that we are missing the point.

You want to find the Creator. Think about the “place,” the desire, where He is revealed. There is no Light without a Kli (vessel).
[34241]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Excerpt from the speech at the 3rd World Spirit Forum “Toward Integral Consciousness” in Arosa (Switzerland), January 23, 2006:

If the cell of a living organism starts acting egoistically with regard to other cells, it becomes cancerous, kills the entire body, and, as a result, itself. A cancerous cell is continuously dividing. It devours all around it, having no obligations to them and no reactions to the organism’s commands.

As a matter of fact, this is the key to all the problems, not only the cancerous ailments. Our egoism develops such characteristics, although balance where everything lives according to the principle of equilibrium, harmony, and striving toward a comfortable state is instilled in Nature at all levels, be it the still, vegetative, or animate one. One way or the other, everything exists solely to maintain balance and grow toward it.

However, we don’t understand the problem correctly, and our view on the imbalance of forces is erroneous as well. The lack of balance in Nature is necessary in order to bring it to even greater harmony. We always advance by way of two states: balanced and imbalanced.

Initially, we existed in a perfect balanced state between minus and plus. All systems of our organism were working fine, Then, nature created in us an imbalanced state, and the negative outweighed the positive.

Why was it made so? It was done so that we would bring ourselves to a better state. How can we possibly bring ourselves to a balanced state? The negative is given to us from Above, by Nature, while we must balance it with a greater positive force, equal to it. This action is produced specifically by us.

Thus, Nature forces us to compensate ourselves, intentionally making us imbalanced. As soon as we have brought ourselves to equilibrium, it again creates in us an additional minus, from Above, and we must bring this minus to plus, to a balanced state, on our own.

Thus, we advance if we understand correctly that in this manner Nature wishes to elevate us from one degree to the next. At first, our egoism was valued at zero. Then, it acquired value minus one. Next, it gained an altruistic value plus one, and again, minus two egoistic degrees, then plus two altruistic ones, and so forth. This is how Nature makes grow.

If we understand this principle, then we pass through the “minus” states of descent very easily and come out to the states of ascent. Everyone who walks on the spiritual path feels this.

“Yesterday I felt so good. I understood and knew everything, experienced the subtlest sensations. Everything became nice and easy in my head, but today I feel a block. Nothing is clear; I feel nothing, and I hate everything. This is all so stupid. What am I doing? All of these so-called friends….”

For us, right now, it is exactly so. That’s why we should record our states. It will clarify what we are like and how we pass through them. Later, we will gradually realize that descents are given to us so we may compensate for them with ascents. By going through such step-by-step actions, we do advance, but only if we understand what needs to be done.

Unfortunately, people usually do the opposite. Instead of enhancing the plus, they want to annihilate the minus. This is where Kabbalah warns: “Don’t do it!”

Minus is all our energy, all our understanding, all our awareness. The greater a person is in his desire, the higher he stands. He can do more, good or bad, it doesn’t matter. The key is a great desire. Do not ever destroy it or lower it to a vegetative degree.

After all, egoism is our vehicle, our instrument, which helps us move forward. We must not eliminate it, we can’t anyway. We are constantly growing egoistically and have come to an egoistic crisis today, precisely so that we now could start using and realizing our desire correctly.
[34209]
From Lesson 2 Berlin Convention 1/28/2011

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Shamati #1, And only if that person has a true desire will he receive help from Above. And he is constantly shown how he is at fault in his present state.

What is the help from Above? It is that you are constantly pushed into your own inner filth, into your egoism, and are shown your own insignificance. This is what the Creator does: He constantly shows a person a huge, black darkness inside of himself, a garbage dump in his thoughts, desires, intentions, and calculations.

Why? It is only in order for him to come to need the Creator, to bring him to a state where he will no longer be able to stand his own stench. To do this, it is necessary to constantly pull him out of this feeling and to show him a different existence—one that is slightly higher, lighter, and higher than his egoism. Then he once again has to be shoved face-first into his own egoism: Look at yourself, see who you are. And then he once again has to be slightly pulled out of that swamp, and then once again thrust head down.

That is how everything happens until a person comes to feel that he really does not have any “holiness” or spiritual purity, and that everything comes only from his personal, small, egoistic being that was created in him and in which he was created.

Although he occasionally receives awakening from Above, which momentarily revives him, but soon after he falls into the place of baseness.

Of course, all of these are the Creator’s actions. But that doesn’t matter because a person feels them upon himself and inside himself. All we are is the sensation. There is nothing else in us besides sensation and we realize only what we feel. The mind only accompanies the feeling.

However, this is what causes him to come to [finally] realize that only the Creator can help and really bring him closer [to perfection]. This need or demand for perfection gradually ripens inside us precisely from these opposite states.
[34357]
From the 4th lesson of the Berlin Convention on 1/29/11

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Kabbalah becomes revealed to every person individually and to the entire mankind in order to answer their questions. People do not care for theory, the quantity of angels in the sky, or the upper Partzufim. They are concerned about one thing only: They need to fulfill their desires. And eventually, they will feel that Kabbalah seems to have the answer.

So far people do not know what they want, but as we disseminate Kabbalah we need to explain to them where they can find what they are searching for. It is like a mother who can feel by looking at a child what he needs, what is good and bad for him. She knows why he cries, what he wants, and where he hurts.

We need to feel humanity in the same way, prevent the blows, and as this desire grows, begin to develop it a little bit ahead of time in order to direct it towards goodness and to avoid suffering. There is no need to wait for horrible hunger to manifest and make people suffer. We need to provide people with fulfillment ahead of time. Let them try and see! We need to explain to them where their desire is directed. This is what the dissemination of Kabbalah is about.

Those who are for now satisfied with their lives need to be left alone. And the rest need the explanation about where they can find fulfillment to the emptiness they feel. People need to understand that a special desire is being revealed in them right now.

So far it completely lacks shape. It needs to be “formatted” and “wired” with a new program or system, like a computer disc which so far is merely a dead piece of metal or plastic, and we need to “bring it to life” in order to learn to work with the programs and data. Then we will be able to use this desire of ours.

In order to do all of this, we need a special force which we receive through our efforts in the group, study, and listening to the teacher. And this way we gradually “reformat” ourselves, and to this extent we begin to adopt new, spiritual information which gives us fulfillment and helps us find our bearings in life.
[33594]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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Question: You have said that we shouldn’t suppress the ego, but rather increase the positive. What do you mean by that?

Answer: This refers to a person walking the path of spirituality and engaged in a Kabbalistic group. How then can one increase the positive when he falls?

When I feel sick I take a pill, and when I’m in a bad mood I go dancing. But by doing these things, I don’t suppress or negate my ego in the slightest degree. If you feel ill, acknowledge it as a fact, but don’t beat yourself up. It isn’t you! It is just a little more of your egoism being shown to you. Don’t take it personally.

The negative constantly evolves in a person in order to develop the positive. What is this positive then? It isn’t the annihilation of egoism or balancing it on the corporeal level. In no way should I compensate a minus with some earthly plus. No matter how dreadful my sensation may be, I wish to compensate the minus solely with a spiritual plus. Otherwise, I will be similar to the “reformers” of the world.

Whatever the case may be, I don’t compensate for the negative by reducing it. After all, it is deliberately given to me since nothing is accidental in life. So what should I do? I need to increase my positive relations with the group, the right environment. Why? It is because my entire future depends on our mutual inclusion in one integral system.

If egoism is evolving in me, then this is the only correct decision. My plus lies on my path to the group. If in my entire emerging egoism, I increase my positive connection with the environment, then it is really an altruistic force with which I balance the egoistic force. And it turns out that I rise to the next level through compensating the minus.

Then, needless to say, a new minus emerges in me, and I must become rooted in the group again. But at that point the group seems to even worse to me: “Idiots, hard-hearted dummies. I don’t want any of this anyway, let me go chill out.”

And thus, gradually a person lowers his head, over and over again, and turns to the environment until he reaches a complete connection. Nature encourages us to do the same so that we are together as one integral whole. Hence, the global crisis and complete dependence on one another shows us in what direction we need to correct ourselves.

So, we have agreed not to work against egoism, but to work in order to use it properly. As a result of the minus, we transform it into a plus. Otherwise, we would never have it.

My “I” is a resistor, like the resistance necessary for producing current from a power source. Minus and plus create the tension that draws and forms my reality. Therefore, having reached a certain potential between minus and plus, I begin to see the picture of the upper world on my “screen.”
[34205]
From the 2nd lesson at the Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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Shamati #1, “There is none else beside Him” Not only does he not progress in his [spiritual] work [and does not see any clearance ahead], but [it seems to him that] he regresses, that is, he lacks the strength to observe [the Creator’s will] even “for his own sake,” [while it is the Creator who pushes him forward].

We don’t create a real egoistic desire that is able to overcome anything. Instead, we start experiencing weakness, indifference, and our operation by automatic pilot. “Let happen whatever will.” We just go with the flow. Sometimes things are a bit better and sometimes a bit worse.

That only by genuinely overcoming all the obstacles, above reason, can he [advance forward]. What does “genuinely overcoming above reason” mean? It’s when in spite of one’s desire and thoughts, without having any predisposition to do so, a person begins to connect to the teacher, the group, and the books. Altogether this is all called “the environment” or the surroundings.

But even in this case, when he begins to connect to them, he is still thrown about, up and down and in relation to the teacher, the group, and the sources or books. Sometimes he wants to and sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he believes it and sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he’s sick and tired of it, and sometimes he strives forward, and so on.

As the difficulties mount, a person starts to feel that there is nothing attractive or special on this path, and nothing motivates him to advance. There is no spark, nothing really worth giving up his life, career, and success for.

As a result, a person falls. His fall is serious, real, deep, and pretty lengthy. Thus, he reaches the final decision that not the group, nor the teacher, nor the books, nor exertion—nothing will help him in the world besides the only governing force, the Creator.

All the times that a person fell and rose, all the states that passed over him were all in order for him to feel total and absolute dependence on no one but the Creator. Imagine how much a person has to be beaten from all sides, shaken up, pushed away and attracted, and shown the existence of a great number of forces and various causes for his states so that in the end he would become convinced that there is nothing besides the one, single Force. If it doesn’t help me, then no one will. Only it will come to my rescue if I demand it.

That is when the following need arises in a person: for the Creator to definitely help him. The formation of this demand is also very not simple. It does not happen in one moment, but it gradually surges up in a person, becoming vividly expressed, fierce, and persistent. Like a child who demands what he wants no matter what—just give him what he wants, and you can’t convince him any other way. That is the kind of state we must reach. And in this state the Creator really does help us.

Only those people who truly want to draw near the Creator, so they will not settle for little, meaning remain as senseless children, they are therefore given help from Above, so they will not be able to say that I have everything and what else do I need?
From the 4th lesson at the Berlin Convention on 1/29/11

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Question: We undergo thousands of various states. How important is it to keep track of or record them in order to pass through each stage consciously?

Answer: It’s a very good question. In the very beginning of my path I asked my teacher this question as well: Should I keep track of all my states? “Today, I feel this way and view others that way.” Will it help if I write down each state I am in: my view of myself and the others, how well I understand, my awareness of myself in this world and of the world itself. Should I establish, let’s say, ten facets and try to review them once a day or possibly once every few days (depending on how my states change)?

My teacher said that it’s worth doing so at the beginning stage. It helps a person. For instance, I look back and see that I had already gone through something similar, and nothing terrible happened: I came out of it. Or I use records for future reference.

How much does this help in advancement per se? It is impossible to relive all the details of the past no matter what. After all, you are now living the next state and cannot feel as being in the past. You don’t comprehend it, as it were; it is a completely different person.

We descend from Above downward along the 125 spiritual degrees, and we get inhabited with hundreds of thousands of Reshimot (informational records). Each Reshimo is a spiritual state that contains all of the worlds, universes, and all there is as a whole.

So, when this Reshimo is working in me, I can feel and think only as it dictates. A Reshimo is gone, and I, like after pushing the button “delete,” don’t know or understand anything. A new Reshimo appears, and I act according to it.

We are a system that constantly experiences a Reshimo, an informational gene which unfolds in it. We are living through this gene. A sequence of such genes gives us a sensation of life, flow, and motion.

Therefore, being in some state today and reading about the states you were in a week or two weeks ago, may not aid your understanding of them at all since you are not living them right now. Try and see for yourself. But it is still useful, at least so that you may understand that you don’t even understand yourself.
[34148]
From the 2nd lesson at the Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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Question: It is known that Rabbi Shimon’s group attained unity among themselves through the mutual writing of The Zohar. Is this also a correct method for us in our time? Should we try to unite by forming small groups, and together taking an article and trying to develop it? Or will this just confuse us since each of us is on our own stage of advancement, different from everyone’s else?

Answer: The authors of The Zohar were also on different stages of advancement; they were not all equal. Each one of the ten authors of The Zohar corresponded to one of the ten Sefirot, according to their nature and the root of their souls. Yet, each of them completely canceled their egos and were able to unite with the others to the full extent of their nature.

This is why each one was able to attain 125 degrees of the spiritual ladder, meaning his own individual final correction (Gmar Tikkun). And together they were able to connect on the highest level possible of the unification of souls, which is why they revealed all of the Light, the upper illumination that descends to us from Arich Anpin referred to as “Zohar” (a special kind of Light).

Clearly, we are not even close to being near these degrees; we are all “dead,” that is, submerged within our egoistic desires. We are not ready nor do we have the desire to connect with one another. We face many struggles and corrections until we attain some form of unity.

But if we try to imitate adults like children do through the games they play, then we attract Light from that perfect state which already exists. These souls, the authors of The Zohar, have revealed and formed it through their ascent from below upward.

A ladder of the worlds (five worlds, each containing five Sefirot, with each containing another five Sefirot, totaling 125 degrees) descends from Above downward, from the world of Infinity. In this way the Light descends towards us from Above downward: Yechida, Haya, Neshama, Ruach, Nefesh (NaRaNHY in reverse order). This is called a concealment, the reduction of Light or worlds (the word “world,” “Olam” in Hebrew, comes from the word “Alama,” “concealment”). In other words, above there is 100% of the Light, and below 0% of it. This is the system of worlds (concealments).

There are souls in our world in which the desire referred to as “man” or “Adam” (similar to the Creator) awakens; it is the rudiment of man in spirituality. Then, this desire begins to grow. How does it grow? It must connect with another nine like it, even to the slightest degree of unification. In this way, they continue to connect even more strongly, until they attain the greatest degree of unity between souls.

Throughout history there were souls who attained unification with one another and they are all connected with others on different levels of this ladder of degrees. All of the authors of The Zohar attained the highest degree together, and for this reason, the Light they brought to this Book is so great that it influences and shines to everyone. This is because they take the Light from Infinity and are able to bring it to us under the condition that on our part, we at least want to rise a little bit towards them.

The Zohar, the entire Light or a part of it, is always revealed to the extent of the degree of unification, the degree of bestowal, and the similarity between the desire (Kli) and the Light. This is why we need to connect as much as possible, both quantitatively and qualitatively. We will receive this Light according to our ability to attain at least the first rung of the 125 degrees.

After all, what do all the 125 degrees represent? The degree of Nefesh also contains all five Lights: Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida (NaRaNHY), and each one of them also has its own NaRaNHY. Hence (NaRaNHY) х (NaRaNHY) х (NaRaNHY) = 5х5х5 = 125 degrees.

Since the Light is divided according to the degree of Aviut (thickness) of desire, we can realize our connection, that is, rise above this thickness and connect despite of our ego. The Light will influence us, correct us, and then fulfill us to the extent of our ability to cancel this Aviut, along with our desire to use it to connect.

There is nothing here besides these two components, the Light and the Kli, and the degree of connection between them called the “screen” or an “intention.”
[33583]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” Article “The Donkey Driver”

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Rabash, Shlavey HaSulam (Steps of the Ladder), Article “What Is the Prohibition to Greet Before One Greets the Creator in the Work”: One must serve the Creator and always look for the ways to bring Him contentment so that the Creator would be pleased by his deeds.

It is written: “The Creator will rejoice at His deeds.” This is because the Creator’s deeds are the created beings who will bring Him joy.

We must work above the desire for pleasure. Everything that happens in it pertains to the still, vegetative, and animate levels of this world, to the materialistic psychology. Here, we determine what we perceive as sweet and bitter, and even if we want to rise higher, we don’t have the strength for it. We are not even aware that something higher exists.

A person becomes aware of his inner struggle with his egoism only after prolonged work. He develops a dilemma: the Creator or an egoistic calculation, and he is torn between them. Then, from the “seesaw” that has manifested in his will to receive pleasure a person rises to a higher “seesaw,” the state of choice referred to as “Klipat Noga (the Noga shell).”

This is when the constant calculations of darkness and Light which take place in his egoistic desire end. Now, “Light” is when regardless of his desire, a person feels that the Creator changes him, “operates” him, frees his attitude from his own nature, and helps rise above his egoism.

The Creator takes man out of calculations of personal benefit, and He enjoys His deeds. We are the Creator’s deeds, His work. The Creator rejoices at changing us.

This is why man must be ready to “sacrifice” himself, in other words, bring himself closer, “enter the operating room,” and entrust himself to the work that the Creator does on him. In this way, man comes to truth.
[33469]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/2011, Writings of Rabash

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