A person who disregards his friends does not receive desire and the importance of the goal from them. A singleton has no Kli.

We, as if, are sitting at a big table together. This table is Malchut of the World of Atzilut (Shechina, Divinity). What a person lays on the table or what he contributes to the connection between all of us is what he is going to collect in spirituality. In this manner, he has to perform multiple actions until they are accumulated and revealed to him.

If I don’t participate in the life of the group, then my force is in opposition to it. As a result, my own force bounces me off and away from the table (P1) and so does the collective force (P2) which is much more powerful. I am simply cast out for I neglected the only opportunity I had. This is highly undesirable.

How do I override this force of rejection that makes me “brush aside” the group and causes the group to “bounce off” me? The reason they reject me is in order to show me what effort is required, here and now, in order for me to keep myself in.

Here is where the evil is revealed. After the question mark (in the diagram below), if I am actually tossed aside, it means true rejection. However, if after having asked myself the question, I exert effort and return to the table, then this rejection turns into an invitation to unite.

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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/22/10, “The Agenda of the Assembly”

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As a person climbs the spiritual ladder, he simultaneously descends into his ego. Suppose I have discerned and corrected only the thinnest, surface layer of my desire. At this level, I have connected with the group, realized the importance of the goal, and drew the Light that Reforms onto myself. However, in order to ascend to the first spiritual degree (one of 125), I need to undergo two more stages.

The second layer of desire is revealed to me finally, and here, I am much worse or “coarser.” Here, I condemn, ignore, deny, and despise. Compared to this state, I was previously as a little child; now, I am being rejected more strongly. What for? It is done to provide me with an opportunity to attain greater unity and draw stronger Upper Light.

This is how I advance time after time, disclosing greater and greater egoism. No matter how high a person may rise, the evil inclination always precedes him. He is prepared for it, of course. Yet, during the descent, nothing helps, and he falls into “minus Infinity.”

In truth, descent is not really a descent, but a state of ascent that you are not yet ready for. It is as if you are transferred into the championship team because your coach knows that you have the capacity to join the top players. The necessary conditions are provided for you. Now, you just have to exert your best effort and take your position next to them as an equal.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/22/10, “The Agenda of the Assembly”

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We exist only in one state, the World of Infinity, but it is hidden from us behind 125 curtains. Beneath 125 concealments corrupted by the descent along 125 degrees, I exist in the opposite nature. But it doesn’t impact my environment in any way. Even if I do not see, feel, or act correctly, I still am present in the spiritual world and have to familiarize myself with its laws. Otherwise I will always lose.

However, since I am distanced from the World of Infinity, the spiritual system treats me accordingly. By lowering me down, the system applies the criteria that “match” me. Of course, I am opposite to bestowal, but only by 1/125th. If I were present in the World of Infinity while being totally opposite to it, I wouldn’t be able to tolerate it.

Thus, I constantly bear damages in accordance with my current state and my next degree; I feel a discrepancy (a gap) between these two states which is, in fact, a force that moves me forward. Even now the power of evil in me draws me down, and I sense alienation from spirituality. I feel bad about this world and about the fact that I haven’t climbed my spiritual first step yet.

The system of Infinity is condensed in relation to us; it reduces itself and creates concealments, meaning spiritual worlds. Due to this fact, a person, just like a child, always faces the necessity to grow. Each time he reveals separation from a higher level so that he can again apply effort and climb another degree.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/22/10, “The Agenda of the Assembly”

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Question: You explained that at each of the 125 degrees of ascension, the desires (the left line) and the Light (the right line) are pre-set for us in advance, and that we rise to their degree by connecting them correctly. How is this realized in practice?

Answer: There are two forces in nature: the force of bestowal and the force of reception (“plus” and “minus” or the right and the left lines). Both of them expand from the Creator, and my job is to construct the middle line from them.

The left line is to receive and the right line is to bestow. I need to connect them by placing “resistance” (R) or a “motor” (M) between them. I connect them, and then they work sustained by my effort (R or M). The result of my actions (the working resistance or the motor) is regarded as the “soul” or “human.”

Suppose I have constructed within myself a human at the first spiritual degree. Now, I am facing the next one. What is the difference between the “human” of the first degree and the “human” of the second degree?

I have to increase “faith above reason” (bestowal over reception), create a screen that connects us all together, arrange the Kli (vessel) in equivalence with the Creator, and draw the Surrounding Light that will help me build the screen (the connection between the right and the left lines).

The desire with the screen has to be equivalent to the Light. The amount of reception in the left line has to be equal to the amount of bestowal in the right line. If I achieve this, I ascend to a higher spiritual degree.
[21754]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/22/10, “The Agenda of the Assembly”

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Everything originates from the Upper Force. All this confusion of “I” and “the world” is driven by a single force of “There is none else beside Him,” and everything happens in order to bring me to its revelation.

The phrase “There is none else beside Him” bears a warning that everything that happens to us is caused by a single force. Every given moment “twists” us around so that we begin to unveil this force, whether it happens in a good way or not.

Good and evil are relative. It is feasible that sometimes He distances us from Himself through successes and draws us closer to Him through afflictions. However, if we recognize that everything comes from Him, then anything in this life becomes a method of connecting with Him.

There is me and the world around me which is, in fact, a demonstration of the Creator’s attitude to me. I have to reveal Him by using this world and initiating a dialogue with Him. However, before I begin to understand Him, He will continue influencing me from the “outside.” He speaks with me in the language of bestowal, but I am still “inside.” and so far, I can only speak the language of receiving.

I am tied up within my ego. Even though the world around me represents the Light, I have no clue about it and continue to accept it in the way my egoism prompts me. If I manage to change myself, I’ll realize that this world is the World of Infinity. Everything depends on the observer (see Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation”).

I view a terrible world around me because I am terrible, yet if I transform myself, I’ll see that it is perfect and eternal. Many Kabbalists who succeeded in correcting their perception by altering their receiving qualities into bestowal tell us about it.

I cannot properly treat this world the way it appears to me because I see it through my false properties. At the same time, I can change my properties and attain bestowal beyond my ego. Then, I’ll see everything in a different way. The world will look different through new properties that I will eventually obtain.

This is called a “new perception of reality.” The world is not a permanent picture; all depends on the observer. It is said that everybody evaluates the world to the degree of their own faults. This world simply serves as a “wrapping” around the real world, although it is all that I can sense at this moment. Later on, I will discover that it is a space full of bestowal and love, and I’ll view them as clearly as I presently see the current “reality.”

All I have to do is to change my receiving properties into bestowing. Thus, I will perceive the “next world.” How do I do this? For that purpose, we have the teacher, the group, and the books.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/22/10, Baal HaSulam, Letter 51

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Question: Can despair extinguish my spark of spiritual desire?

Answer: Of course it can. I’ve already given way to despair in this world, and I’m no longer consumed with the earthly desires. Meanwhile, there is a “spark” that shines within me. It’s the awakening from Above that brings me to a teacher and a group.

Between my despair and the spark emerges a tension, a vector, a force of desire that is caused by their difference. I don’t know where it is directed exactly, but it is already a subconscious direction towards bestowal.

This Kli is already aimed upwards like a dipole (a pair of charges with opposite signs). To use my desire correctly, I place it in the “magnetic” field of the group. In this case, the group’s forces aim my dipole and move it in the direction of the goal, the quality of bestowal and love.

The environment, the group, has powerful poles: a big disappointment with this world and the importance of bestowal. To the extent of my connection with this field, a common desire, it influences me and carries me along to the goal.

Particles (dipoles, charges, particular desires) are powerless by themselves. To empower and accelerate them, we build accelerators. In the same way, the group (the common desire) blows up my spark of desire into a big fire. The principle is simple: I join the community and make my road to the goal quicker and easier by means of the common desire.

When I join the group, I am taught how to become absorbed into this field, this common desire of bestowal and love. I receive more than just a desire from the environment because I’m not in a regular egoistic society, but I am surrounded by Kabbalists that want to reveal the Creator in their common field of desire of the Creator.

I draw closer not only to the group, but to the Upper Giving Force that is concealed in our common desire. This is why in return for my efforts to unite, I receive from the environment the power of the Creator: the Light that Reforms.

The environment that one builds responds to his efforts with the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif, OM).

[21668]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/21/10, “Who Testifies for Man”

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The surrounding Upper Light fills the entire reality, and all depends on those who receive it. Nothing ever changes; the Creator created a point of desire in His Light, and there is nothing else. All of evolution occurs in this point which expands, as it were, changing its size because it feels that it is receiving something from somebody. Hence, desire is that very point that grows in the perception of the receiver.

Desire doesn’t grow on its own but through the sensation that there is a Giver. At the first stage of development (Behina Aleph), the creature feels as a receiver. The instance it senses the Giver, it begins to change.

At the second phase (Behina Bet), it wishes to be similar to the Giver and starts thinking how to accomplish that. This lays the foundation for the beginning of Zeir Anpin, the third stage (Behina Gimel), where a copy of the Creator is created by way of receiving in order to bestow.

Then, having acquired the sensation of what it means to be similar to the Creator, the creature transitions into the fourth stage (Behina Dalet) and wishes to reach the status of the Giver. That is where the creature feels shame, and the First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph) takes place. Thus, with the exception of initial creation as “existence from absence,” all the subsequent development is induced by the sensation of the Giver.

In the Upper Light, there are no changes. Sages even inform us that in the World of Infinity (Ein Sof) there will be the smallest of Lights, Nefesh De-Nefesh. In spirituality, calculations are made not in weight or volume; rather, quality is what matters there.

From one tiny point, the physicists tell us, the Universe was born. How? They don’t know because in truth, everything is measured according to a totally different criterion that we haven’t yet obtained, the criterion of importance. We think that importance lacks substance and isn’t real enough, but in truth, it is the most significant and effective.

Therefore, the size of the Kli is determined by the awareness of the importance of the Giver. In other words, the Light depends on to what degree I expand the vessel. The Light is just a spark, the vessel is the size of a grain, and I can increase them to the “size” of Infinity. It is entirely up to me.
[21607]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/20/10, “The Greatness of a Person Depends on His Faith in the Future”

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Rabash, Article 37, 1984/85 "Who Testifies For Man":  In the degree that a man stepped out of self love he may be rewarded with absolute faith.

Question: What is absolute faith?

Answer: This passage talks about a very high spiritual degree or the process of building the middle line. After the preparation period, we arrive at the state of partial faith (Hafetz Hesed). During this stage, I focus solely on rising above a constantly growing mountain of egoistic desire. Time after time, ascending over it, I turn the transgressions and mistakes of the previous step into the mistakes and merits, accordingly. In doing so, I become an incomplete righteous.

Afterward, I ascend to the degree of love and turn everything into merits. This is what we call absolute or perfect faith, which is divided into degrees as well. “Faith” is the Light of Hassadim, which expands into the Kli, and “perfect faith” is Hassadim with the illumination of Hochma. Perfection is attained solely due to the Light of Hochma when it is able to fill the Light of Hassadim.

At this stage, I work in two lines and realize the third line by receiving for bestowal. When I fill the will to receive and the will to bestow, the perfect faith emerges in me: Hochma in Hassadim.

[21665]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/21/10, “Who Testifies for Man”

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At a certain moment after many incarnations (Gilgulim), an initial awakening for spirituality, the point in the heart (Reshimo), is roused in a person. It is comprised of two forces: 1) emptiness that one feels from the worthlessness of this transient, vain existence and despair from being unable to find fulfillment in this world, and 2) some inner “spark” that makes a person seek something unknown that exists beyond this world.

On the one hand (downward), there is despair; on the other (upward), there is a spark. As a result, a person sets his course. Together, these two forces form within a person the Reshimo: a new direction in his existence.

This Reshimo leads him to the teacher and the group who study Kabbalah. Later on, he gradually realizes that he will be able to build the force of bestowal or equivalence to the Creator only by connecting with other Reshimot similar to his. This is his only free choice and act of free will in life.

A person’s success is determined by the degree to which he is able to increase his spark with the help of the group, against all personal obstacles. If he manages to enhance it, he will feel the need for faith (bestowal) and for the others (the means). It is all defined by the luck in reception (absorption) of the effects of the spiritual environment (the teacher’s recommendations and the collective opinion of the group).

The environment is not just the group or the friends, but Shechina (Divinity). My connection with them is the connection with the Shechina, Malchut of the World of Atzilut, the collective soul of Adam. Unity of the friends in annulling their egos and attaining the property of bestowal evokes a response from Shechina and receiving the Light of correction from her, Ohr Makif.

Thus, a person enters interacting with the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif) that advances him to the revelation of the property of bestowal (faith) within himself. And within this property, he reveals the Inner Light (Ohr Pnimi). All our work is aimed at increasing the desire for the property of bestowal through the correct environment and the importance thereof. It can’t be learned; this work is described as “we shall do, and we shall hear.”

A person exerts effort in connection with the group despite the fact that he may not feel the need to do so. In return, he receives support and the collective need, the desire, accumulated by the friends in the group: the need for faith and bestowal.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/21/10, “Who Testifies for Man”

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Question: How do I change my values? How do I place the importance of the Upper Force which constantly defines and forms me and my world above all material, animate, physical, and even human desires? How do I use the group, the environment, to raise it above everything that is important to the egoistic desire?

Answer: It is specifically the importance that differentiates the egoistic desire from the spiritual desire to bestow. On the corporal level, it is concentrated on the Kli (vessel), while on the spiritual level, it is focused on the Creator.

That is, what matters is where you focus your attention: on what you receive or from Whom you receive it.

Importance can be switched over. For example, from a mother’s perspective, a child is more important than her. However, how do I follow her example regarding other people in such a diverse world? How do I convince myself to transfer the importance from my life to a certain force that paints this world for me?

It’s worth remembering that I reveal this force by making an effort to examine it. I acquire the vessel of revelation. Now, the force is also present, but I am not focused on perceiving it. So, how do I focus my attention on it?

Everything depends on importance. When it is focused on the Creator, I feel Him and live in Him. I can finally discern the things I did not notice before. The Creator Himself does not change. He remains at absolute rest. It is only the constantly operating Reshimot (reminisences, the spiritual genes) that make me make an effort. And later, I myself need to look for a way to focus these efforts on whatever really matters.

This is where the environment comes to the rescue. Like glasses, it focuses my eyes on the essence. We unite, raise the importance of spirituality in our eyes, and focus our common efforts on a tiny point through which I begin to see the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/20/10, “The Greatness of a Person Depends on His Faith in the Future”

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