Question: Why do you say that the importance of the teacher should not be taken for granted by his students?

Answer: Imagine that the president comes to us on a special visit to meet you. He asks us about you and says that he has been looking for a person like you for years until it became clear that you are here. He comes to you with his entourage, shakes your hand, and then you go into the conference room together for a talk after which you come out with illuminated faces, and he gets into his presidential car and departs to the president’s home.

After this visit you carry on as usual with your friends, but we already look at you differently. Whether we want to or not, but we have to be careful. Something new has been created among us and we don’t know how to relate to you, how to behave next to you. You say something and we listen to you skeptically, but we pay careful attention to every word you say. Our attention is focused on you, we already depend on you, our ego is “locked’ on you, and there is nothing we can do about that. This is the natural way of prostration, of reverence, that is a naturally innate part of us.

But this is not the real work. If I want to connect with the Creator and reach an equivalence of form with Him, I have to rise above my nature, to change it into something that is opposite and unknown in its oppositeness. Of course, it will be very difficult to fulfill this since it’s as if I am turning myself inside out, like a glove, going out of my skin, killing myself.

But it can be done easily. Kabbalists say that it isn’t a problem at all. If I have enough fuel, then the whole way can turn into a pleasant adventure, a stroll in the zoo. I will go from one cage to another, from one animal to the next, and correct my desires until I leave the “animal kingdom” as a human being, Adam.

It’s all about the fuel that comes to me in a chain: from the Creator, through the Kabbalists, the teacher, and the friends. So I have to be incorporated in the group in order to be impressed by the friends and to accept what is important to them. It’s the teacher who is important to them, a person whom I actually don’t like, by whom I am repulsed, and to whom I find myself antipathetic. I automatically despise him and don’t see anything in him that I value.

But I understand that all this is presented to me that way intentionally, and so I use these means to examine myself according to the simple criterion: Do I want to listen to what the teacher says and fulfill it? To fulfill what he says not out of an “animal” commitment, but in order to reach the Creator who is behind him.
[100995]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar

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Question: Why does a person have to openly say: “The world was created for me?”

Answer: A person has to discover that the world was created for him, that everything in him and around him, and that all the attributes and the actions he sees are aimed at and lead to the correction of his soul, but it’s only if he uses all this correctly and there is nothing else.

Everyone is facing the world of Ein Sof (Infinity), but he perceives this Ein Sof as the picture of this world. If he attributes all the states to the world of Ein Sof according to the principle of “There is none else besides Him,” “the good and the benevolent,” and if he gathers all the times into one point, realizing that they all refer to one idea and that they all lead to one root that returns us to one goal, then he will be able to say openly that the whole world was created only for him.

Everyone should do that: Everyone has his own world since he discovers the world in his desire; he discovers that everything else is his own mental strength and he is the only one who has freewill. Now it seems that there are other forces in the world beside him, but this is only because he hasn’t reached the recognition and the decision that the whole world is inside him, depicted in him and is meant for him, so that he will be able to reveal the general unity.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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All our work is to discover the real, fixed, existing, eternal, whole, state that we are in. We have to evoke our feelings and thoughts so that we will feel it instead of the world we are feeling now. We have to open our hearts and minds without making a move but only awakening more each time until we reach adhesion with the Creator.

If this is how we imagine this state, then we clearly understand that everything that happens to us signals the places we have to pay special attention to. It is in those places that we have to clarify our feelings, thoughts, intentions, and attitude towards our attributes in order to develop them more in a sequence and to be worthy of the revelation of the state in which we are in constant adhesion with the Creator.

So there is nowhere to run. We must return to the same internal point that starts from the point in the heart each time and make sure that it develops constantly. There is nothing else we can discover in all of reality except for the one force that is in us that supports us and takes care of us all the time.

If a person stops himself this way, by seeing only one right direction for his development that leads to the revelation of the upper force that is in the point in the heart, and does not leave this direction, and intentionally stops and restricts all the other ways that seemingly allow him to develop, see, check and feel, by strongly closing them, it means that he is aiming his powers on attaining the goal.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The moment a person comes complaining to the Creator, there is an immediate concealment and he is no longer aiming at the Creator but rather at another goal. It’s because the Creator is the only force, there is none else beside Him and He is good and benevolent. If you aim straight at Him, then you can’t have any complaints. The moment you divert a little from the right direction, you immediately feel dissatisfied and full of complaints.

Turn to the right direction and do your best until you divert again and start complaining. Thus, by your dissatisfaction and overcoming it each time you advance towards the Creator, like a boat that advances by tacking. It’s because you can’t advance directly to the Creator; you don’t have the attribute of bestowal, the attributes of the good and the benevolent. You have to build this image above your attribute of receiving, from your oppositeness. You build a replica of these attributes and not the actual attributes.

It’s common knowledge that the only way to create a sculpture is by removing the excess and or a surplus. You can take a big rock and take off all the unnecessary parts to get the desired form. You can take plaster and make a statue out of it, but in any case, the main thing is the border, the external form we create on top of the desire to receive by clarifying each time where to draw the line between the desire to receive and the desire to bestow.

So our work is always made of the inclination to resemble and for that reason a person is called “Adam – man” which means “Domeh” (similar to in Hebrew) to the Creator. Our work is to justify the Creator. I can’t focus myself on that, to become good and benevolent and there is none else beside Him, by myself. But by justifying Him I become equal to Him and attribute myself to His form.
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From the 1^st Part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How can I check if my work is real?

Answer: Real work is when I use the environment, the group, as much as I can, wanting to discover our strong mutual connection. I have to discover a good honest attitude on the part of the group towards me and to accept it as the Creator’s attitude towards me, who dressed in the group. On my part, I have to express the same attitude towards the group: honest, warm, and good in perfect connection according to my level.

There is no other place we can meet and fulfill the relations among us except for the group. A group does not mean establishing personal connections with everyone, but treating everyone equally, by wanting to discover the Creator in the connection among us.

We are all different and each one brings along his uniqueness and his differences, all his complaints and his problems, and all the negative states he goes through. We come to the group with all these differences, with our minuses (-), but we work in the opposite manner so that everyone will turn it into a plus (+). All our pluses connect into one big “plus,” and thus we build the Creator since this plus was created above all our minuses.

In the minus I achieve my independence and remain my own self, the “self” is not erased. In our plus we reach a “void” since it is there that a person wants to dissolve and disappear in the group. Thus we go through a complete change: from one end to another and include the two forces within us. What we have is called “reason,” but above that there is “faith,” which is “above reason.” This means that we constantly prefer bestowal by placing it above receiving.

This is all of our work that can only be fulfilled in the group. The gap (∆) between the “self” and the “void” always determines the height of my level in which I feel my Light of NRNHY.
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From the 1^st Part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“: We should understand what Dvekut (adhesion) with the Creator means. After all, the thought has no perception of Him whatsoever. Indeed, our sages have discussed this question before me, asking about the verse, “and to cleave unto Him: How can one cleave unto Him? After all, He is consuming fire.”

And they replied, “Cleave unto His qualities: As He is merciful, you are merciful; as he is compassionate, you are compassionate.

If we change several attributes in us by turning them from “in order to receive” to “in order to bestow,” how does that enable us to understand whom the Creator is? And, what is more, how does it help us resemble Him? How do we acquire this resemblance? How do we adhere to Him? After all, it is impossible to touch Him. So, how do inner “tricks” allow us to resemble someone who we don’t even see and with whom we cannot identify? How can we understand the principle of “from Your actions we know You?” How do the inner changes lead me to Him? How is it possible to love others if it isn’t my nature?

This is why I am not obligated to love directly, but I can correct my 611 desires, and, then, the 612^th correction will be the acquisition of the attribute of Hassadim to the fullest, and the 613^th correction will be “to receive in order to bestow.” So, it is impossible to obligate one to love, but it is from the corrections that precede it that we can attain it.

This is also how the resemblance to the Creator is attained. We fulfill and arrange all the necessary actions internally, and it isn’t the actions themselves that are important, but the clarifications we make regarding every detail. All the clarifications add up and accumulate and turn into spiritual vessels.

So, nothing is lacking in our work. We cannot reach the end of correction in one leap. In fact, we are already at the end of correction, but we don’t have the vessels to feel that. So, we must collect all the vessels along the way in order to finally reach this revelation.

Question: What does “to cleave unto the Creator” mean for us today?

Answer: I build His image inside me through the different discernments I make internally. It isn’t about external signs, but about an internal essence. The Creator is a spirit of bestowal that is born and fills me. It is an attitude in which I can produce to “bestow in order to bestow” or to “receive in order to bestow.” It is a reflection that I reflect from inside me, outward.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/19/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Lowliness is not when I don’t have the power to do something, but rather when I think that I actually do something. The lowly is not someone who cannot be a hero, but someone who thinks that he is a hero. If the ego awakens in a person, then everything he says indicates his lowliness.

After all, everything is managed by the upper Light. But a person thinks that he has his own power, feelings, and mind in his ego, and this is his lowliness. The lowliness is in the fact the he doesn’t understand, that he doesn’t feel, and doesn’t attain that his desire to receive is only a replica of the Light. It’s only a shadow of the Light and he has nothing but that shadow.

If a person feels and understands this, if he fights the lowliness that is evoked in him over and over again in order to reveal the gap between him and the Creator, then he enters another lowliness that is actually not a sign of lowliness but of adhesion. He doesn’t want to be adhered to his desire and serve it devoutly, not in the shadow, which is the opposite replica of the Light that imagines that it exists independently since it’s detached from the source. Instead he wants to devoutly serve the Light itself. Thus he reaches adhesion with the source.

Then he is filled with pride, with power, with everything that that Light has by having annulled his desire to receive before the Creator. He thanks the Creator for having created this desire to receive by which a person can feel how he can adhere to the Creator. Thus the clarification of self-lowliness constantly helps a person get closer to the truth, to the source. So where one feels His lowliness is the place where one discovers the Creator’s humbleness and His greatness.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/18/13

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Baal HaSulam, Writings of Baal HaSulam, Letter 17: This is because there is he who walks, who is worse than he who sits idly. It is he who deflects from the road, for the path of truth is a very thin line that one walks until one comes to the King’s palace.

One who begins to walk at the beginning of the line needs great care so as not to deviate to the right or to the left of the line even as much as a hair’s breadth. This is so because if at first the deviation is as a hair’s breadth, even if one continues completely straight, it is certain that he will no longer come to the King’s palace, as he is not stepping on the true line…

Question: What shall we do to defend ourselves and stay on the right track if we are entirely in the hands of the upper force?

Answer: Indeed, if I am in the world that is governed by the upper force, then why should I be taking care of myself? Can’t this force take care of me? It is said that the Creator puts one’s hand on the good fate and says: “Choose it!” It is He who brings us to the group, the teacher, and the books. From whom should I defend myself if there is “none else besides Him?”

However, in order to clarify the point of adhesion, to become wise, sensitive, and accomplished according to the Creator’s level, I have to fight against all forces that are seemingly opposite to Him. I have to elucidate them, to sort them and figure out which ones act “for” and which “against.” In this war, among the “allies” and “opponents,” I have to come to a conclusion that I am not able to cope with this on my own, even though I have feelings, a brain, and a certain experience.

I still need the Creator next to me irrespective of my mind and feelings that help me only in the beginning and afterward only interfere. This explains why I call for the Creator’s help and fight only together with Him, which is called fighting by the “power of faith.”

This turns me into a judge, a general commander in the Creator’s war against Amalek, staying between the two of them. This entire war unfolds in accordance with my clarifications and requests. This is the way we advance.

There are fatal “mistakes” that are hard to explain. In order to understand them, one has see the entire system as a whole. One makes a small insignificant mistake in the very beginning of one’s path in the situations that one doesn’t understand and thus loses the track and can’t return to it.

In one of his letters, Baal HaSulam describes a person who was given a lucky chance to get to the Garden of Eden. There, he feels that the Creator is standing right behind him. He turns around and follows the Creator, and then all of a sudden figures that he failed to tell the place where the Garden of Eden ended and the Hell, which is next to it right behind the fence, started. He exits the Garden of Eden and gets back to his regular life. The Creator stays in the Garden and locks the door in the wall until the next time, maybe after a couple of life circles.

Of course, we cannot advance without making mistakes. It is said: “There is no righteous man on earth who does good and does not sin.” However, it is said about other mistakes that we make when the Creator teaches us and forces us to err so that we deeper understand the basics where we should never make mistakes.

At each step there is a mistake that the Creator brings me to. However, He holds me by the hand, like an adult holds the child, leads me to this error, and says: “See, you might have fallen here, this place is dangerous.” He helps me feel problematic places. I’m like a child in the hands of an adult who carries and teaches me, and thus I’m not scared at all and feel confident on His hands.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, Letter 27: Of course I want to unite with you body and soul. Although I cannot work except in spirituality and in my soul, I know your soul and I can unite with it, but you cannot work in your hearts but only with the body since you don’t know my spirituality, so that you can unite with it, and if you understand that, you will also understand that I don’t feel that I am distant from you at all, but you need to be close to the body and the location of course, but it is for your own self and for your work, and not for my work.

But I pray to the Creator that He should lead you by the path of truth and that you will be saved from the obstacles along the way and that the Creator will be by you in everything that you do.

And on your part you have to be careful to follow the path that I have prepared for you, in the matter of the heart and mind, longings and prayers, and then the Creator will certainly help us and we will soon unite in our heart and soul.

Of course the distances are meaningless for a Kabbalist who understands the inner state of his students and it makes no difference what world he is in: in a body or without a body, distant in that world or nearby. If there is a connection between the teacher and the students, then nothing can affect it. It turns out that the problem is only with the students, for whom it is hard to manage without the physical feeling of one another or the teacher. So there is no other solution but to hasten the advancement as much as they can.
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From the 1^st Part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/17/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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