Rabash, Letter #29: But a person doesn’t have a need to bring waste from the outside, as is the case with fertilizing a tree. It must translate impurities from the world to the revelation, meaning, inside his feeling.

Question: What is “waste” for me and what is “fertilizer”?

Answer: It depends on your choice. You are given the ability to decide whether you prefer to eat from waste or good things from bad things? And you always choose something from the two possibilities, but gradually tip the scale in the direction to bestowal. You don’t have the strength to completely annul reception, but anyway, you advance in the right direction.

In your vessel, Kli, there are always three parts. In the upper part you can work for the sake of bestowal, in the middle part restriction reigns, and in the lower part is something that you want for yourself.

The right line can’t exist without the left line, and the left line without the right line. Everything needs to be diversified, until at Gmar Tikkun (the final correction), all the evil will operate as good.

Question: This means that if the friends create an obstacle for me, then they give me “fertilizer”?

Answer: It depends on your meaning of “obstacle.” If the friends show me how much they long to recognize the greatness of the Creator, for a higher level, for adhesion, for Gmar Tikkun, for unity and connection between them, for the revelation of the Light, then for me it can be an obstacle since this approach is hated by the ego, but it can also be a motivation that pushes forwards.

The upper shows the lower the Light, His bestowal, and the lower, by feeling this, must clarify if for him this is food or waste. It is written, “Straight are the ways of the Lord, in them the just walk, but sinners stumble in them.” I can decide that bestowal for me is specifically the Light that pulls me forward. I want to adhere to it and overcome myself in order to do this, even though it is not simple to receive it as food. And then, in this case, I am called “righteous.” But if I don’t want it, then I am called a “sinner”.

In this way, I examine myself according to the principle of “a person will always see himself as half-righteous and half-wicked.” The upper gives me the Light and I can feel it like light or like darkness.

For example, today in the lesson there were many people sitting there without a good mood. And I was very happy about that. Because that is how a disease is discovered. It is very good. Now what is left is to bring the treatment. But they don’t think so. They feel sick.

This means, the question is: It depends on how a person decodes what he receives. There is no evil in the world, but everything depends on how we interpret what happens. For me, the Light, the force of life, can be either food or waste. The tree, naturally, receives fertilizer from the animals, as a good thing, and we have to choose, because from the beginning the “fertilizer” that arrives from the upper doesn’t look good to us. This thing doesn’t look good to me to the extent that it looks like “excrement” and not like a treasure….
[98745]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/13, Writings of Rabash

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We have completed the convention, “have come to our senses” a little. Someone experiences ascent, someone else descent, it is hard to say, everyone is in his own state.

Now, each of us must give an account, “What will happen to my soul?” and try to start to rise with all the weight that we have gained as a result of the convention. Where are all the discernments regarding a person’s relation to the group, to self-nullification, to the assessment of the importance of the goal, which is already close, and we begin to feel the first spiritual qualities of perception in practice?

How can we quickly get prepared for the next convention? We have two upcoming conventions:  the European convention in Düsseldorf, Germany, and the feast of Passover in Israel, and we have to work hard, intensely, so that this unity brings real spiritual ascent.

We have to move so that through our effort we can enter into real spiritual attainment, not just lightly feel it from the outside. Therefore, we have to learn, take lessons from the past, and prepare for the future. As many inner discernmenst of spiritual properties we can go through now, this will be our preparation for the next convention.
[98843]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/27/13, The Zohar

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Question: If we don’t understand what bestowal is, then how can we work on our faith in the Creator and His greatness?

Answer: We work like children who play with faith as with a toy, and with bestowal as a game. This is called the time of preparation when we deal with the imitation and not with real bestowal; it’s as if we bestow. When through the study we reach such a state, we are already given some serious work.

We are given the powers for that from Above when it’s clear that we will not use them to harm others. Only then are we allowed to bestow. The force of receiving is not dangerous, and I don’t go out of my way because of it. But if I use the force of bestowal incorrectly I can cause great harm.
[98730]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/13, Writings of Rabash

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Rabash, “The Entrance into the Work”: The beginning of the work must be in Lo Lishma (not for its sake), which means that by believing in the Creator one will have a life of pleasure. This means that if he does this, which is called faith, then he feels elation and has higher mental powers than he has when he doesn’t perform this action.

It turns out that this is a unique quality by which he can taste greater tastes in quantity and in quality than he tastes when he performs other special actions that bring him pleasure… pleasures and unique qualities bring him limited pleasures in quantity and in quality. However, the unique quality of faith brings him greater pleasure in quantity and in quality. And all this is called Lo Lishma since his entire intention was only in order to attain a greater pleasure.

Only after he attains the level that is called Lo Lishma, is he rewarded with other phenomena and comes to a higher state. This means that he has no self-interest, but all his interests and thoughts are true. This means that his entire intention is only to annul himself in the true reality, feeling that he only has to serve the King since he feels the King’s supremacy and His importance.

Then he forgets, which means that he has no need to worry about himself in any way, since he annuls himself like a candle before a torch because he feels the Creator’s presence. Then he is in the state of Lishma (for Her sake), to bring contentment to the Creator, and all his worries and desires are as to how he can bring the Creator pleasure. And his own reality, which means the desire to receive, does not exist at all. Then he is considered one who bestows in order to bestow.

I think that you have already felt these two states at the convention. The first is when a person yearns to receive the spiritual pleasure for himself, whether he admits it or not, and does it only for self-benefit. By that he hopes to attain a good life in this world and in the next world, to gain more and change his fate for the better. In all his accounts there is only: “I, I, I,” and he cannot take himself out of the picture.

This happens unconsciously. Even if a person tries not to take himself into account, the moment he doesn’t succeed, he gradually returns to himself each time. Then he finds out that self-benefit, personal interest, was always in the spiritual picture he yearned for. So his participation in the group, the inclination to the Creator, the work, and the efforts depend only on his feeling that all this would pay off.

The realization that he operates only for himself is already a revelation. In the meantime he performs actions without the right intention, which means with his natural egoistic intention, and not in order to bestow by not detaching the action from self-benefit.

But thanks to such actions of Lo Lishma, he goes through four phases of development: 1. to receive in order to receive, 2. to bestow in order to receive, 3. to bestow in order to bestow, 4. to receive in order to bestow, and all this is in the state of Lo Lishma.

Thus he clarifies what is “allowed” and what is “forbidden” in Lo Lishma since these four states are the ones that determine the combination of his actions and his intention. But due to the fact that a person performs all these “malicious acts” because of his innate ego since he has no choice, the evil inclination created by the Creator, the upper Light constantly operates on him, and gradually bit by bit, takes him out of the slavery to the ego, cleaning him from the intention of in order to receive for himself.

He attains the level in which he begins to think about self-annulment, he feels a great measure of grace and attraction, he begins to value devotion and self-annulment, not under the pressure of sufferings, but because he values the attribute of bestowal itself more and more to such an extent that he eventually annuls himself.

If a person delves into this and works on this persistently, then after a short while he receives the attribute of bestowal from the Light: Then he forgets, which means that he feels no need to care about himself in any way since he annuls himself as a candle before a torch because he feels the presence of the Creator.

But he annuls himself not for self-benefit, but by raising the actual state of self-annulment. “Then he is in a state of Lishma, to bring contentment to the Creator, and all his worries and desires are as to how he can bring the Creator pleasure, and his own reality, which means the desire to receive, does not exist at all. Then he is in a state of one who bestows in order to bestow.

We began the clarifications of self-annulment in the Arava convention. We felt it in the general mass of the participants as one. Now we have to continue by focusing more on this point so that all the distances and the interruptions that come up in the time between the conventions will help us. They will provide us with the thickness that we need to annul in order to annul ourselves.
[98658]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/13

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We can compare the ascents and descents to a pump in which a piston goes up and down. When the piston goes down, air is expelled from the opening in the wall of the pump. But then this valve closes and the piston begins to rise and creates a vacuum, thus pulling out part of the material from the cylinder, and it goes into your vessel. And you have to build a Masach (screen) on top of it.

This happens each time you are in an ascent or a descent. You take out some of the material of the desire from inside and add it to the work. When it enters your vessel, it’s already a desire that is ready for work. In the cylinder itself there is all the infinite desire that you gradually pump out of there, just like a pump, and it’s done by your ascents and descents.
[98727]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How should we relate to the states of confusion and blurriness after the convention? Can we do anything or should we simply wait for them to go away by themselves?

Answer: Under no circumstances should you wait! In spirituality you should never wait for anything, you should only move forward!

Believe me, I am not lying to you. When I, just like any of us until the end of correction, feel a kind of fogginess, blurriness, lack of desire, and suddenly deteriorate into tough states, I don’t lose my head. We must clearly realize that it comes from the Creator, that I was given the next spiritual level, which is revealed with its thickness, as it says, “And the evening and the morning were one day”; thus, everything is fulfilled and so I am happy about that.

In fact I am happy when I go through such times, because for me it doesn’t take long. In the past it could last for two months, while now it takes a couple of minutes, but these minutes are very joyful. I feel what I will attain by what I have just invested, what my additional ego will bring me in attainment. I immediately rush to the computer and begin to work on some materials. I don’t see anything at all on the screen! But I work mechanically, correcting The Zohar texts or articles by Baal HaSulam and Rabash, adding commas and periods here and there.

I sometimes sit like an idiot and after several minutes everything passes. Now it takes a couple of minutes, whereas in the past it could take a week and even longer. Gradually it takes less time, but in order for that to happen, we should work on these states. They become shorter to the extent that you begin to understand that there are no descents and that this is the next level.
[98716]
From the Virtual Lesson 1/20/13

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It is never revealed to us in advance what we have to do and how to do it. The Creator is concealed, His system is concealed, and I am given several means with which I can try to recreate the system inside me. I am only given a certain part of the Creator’s system as an example and asked to create it by myself. Then I discover that I have the exact opposite attributes with respect to the properties that I have to create. But this is also help, since I am shown the exact oppositeness! I have to find this oppositeness, to understand and feel it, and from the opposite property to guess the right attribute.

This means that I learn why I am corrupted this way and why I must agree to the opposite despite my reluctance. In order to do this, I have to annul myself, lower my importance and to increase the importance of the Creator. I am in a struggle and don’t agree to trample on myself.

For example, there are people whom I hate the most, who have caused me so many problems, that I don’t want to see and who ignite anger in me when I see them. Now I have to develop a different attitude toward them, the opposite attitude. I begin to discover that my intentions are opposite from the intentions that are presented to me as desirable.

I am brought to the group and told to connect with them and to love them. If I begin to love them, I will correct my perception and my senses and will calibrate myself to the feeling and the revelation of the Creator. I can feel Him in my friends, in this corrected relationship that I create. Instead of the friends, I will feel the Creator. There are no friends; there is only the Creator.

All this is thanks to the fact that I have broken my ego and inverted it, twisted it inside out, by having changed my attitude towards my enemies from hate to love, from rejection to connection. But I do all that in order to build a system of compatibility to the upper force. By developing and increasing the Creator’s importance in order to bring Him contentment without any connection to myself, I bring Him contentment in a way that He doesn’t even see me, just as I don’t see Him now. He doesn’t feel that it comes from me, just as I don’t feel that everything comes from Him. It is as if He, as if, ignores me, just as I neglect Him now because of the concealment and by that He lets me feel that I really conceal myself. I am ready for Him to ignore me and that He wouldn’t know anything about me, since then my bestowal, my attitude toward Him will be just like His attitude toward me, according to the way it seems to me now.

By all this we learn the right attitude toward the Creator above our corrupt desire. This means that we correct our desire and our attitude and by that attain bestowal. This means that we develop the feeling of the importance of the Creator in order to connect to Him.
[98652]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question:  When the addition of ego rejects and throws us off the goal, we go to the group to receive help. At the same time, how can we not erase or extinguish this new situation? Because it needs to bring us benefit.

Answer: It depends on the group: it should be like a commando, it needs to value the toil.

Question: What out of all this depends on me?

Answer: I am happy about my connection with the group, and I am sorry that I am not yet in adhesion with the upper. You need to imagine the desired state and then the lack of being in conformity with the current reality inside you; you will invite sorrow that should later become pangs of love.

Let’s assume that I attained some spiritual state, and then what we call, “I hit my head” and suddenly I forgot the goal and found myself some place, in the movie theatre. I enjoy eating popcorn, drinking Coke, and seeing an interesting movie; this is not suffering, but pleasure from disconnection from the main thing. Moreover, I enjoy not only beastly pleasures, but rather that I’m disconnected from spirituality.

But then the lack of meaning in my life again reminds me of His existence, and I begin to return. I go back to the group again, listen to the friends, and annul myself to them from lack of choice until they again begin to influence me with the importance of the Creator, the importance of the goal. They wash my brain with blatant propaganda that is mixed with a lie, but I intentionally go through all this and eventually the goal becomes important to me.

Then I receive with love everything I experience: the forgetfulness, the pleasure at the movie theatre, and the descent of the value of spirituality in my eyes. Whether I want it or not, this comes from the Creator and I had to go through this in order to be corrected.

Now I begin to collect inside me other sufferings, torments of love, because I as if want to reach adhesion and connection, but meanwhile I don’t have even suffering for that, I am still not even sorry that I am not there, I don’t have a real deficiency or even a lack for the deficiency. I only have a tiny bud of something, and from this great distance, I begin the path.

The question that arises is: What am I suffering from? That the Creator, so to speak, is rejecting and throwing me out? Or that that I still did not achieve the goal? And here the main thing is to worry that my suffering will always be sweet. Because whatever happens, I receive everything from the Creator; therefore, every state needs to be justified and joined to the goal where all these situations receive sweetening and correction.

Baal HaSulam writes in Letter 5: I am glad in those revealed corruptions and those that are being revealed. How much I complain and I regret the corruptions that still are not yet revealed, and will be revealed, because corruption that is concealed is hopeless, and a big salvation from Heaven is its revelation.
[98721]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/13, Shamati #9 

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Question: During the workshops and lessons at the Arava convention was the first time I was awarded with strong hatred for the group. It is difficult to overcome. How can I work with this; is it through work in the intervals between the congresses or work during the congresses? In other words, when we face this at a convention, do we overcome this by means of our work in between the congresses and there must be a constant effort to control oneself?

Answer: The effort should be in place. You need to prepare for falls in advance. There is nothing wrong with them. On the contrary, you need to meet these states with joy, despite the fact that you feel, “How can it be? I don’t want that!” This inner struggle is very good and essential.

In any case, do not try to remove it, do not erase it, but also do not dwell on it inside, do not beat yourself up, but rise above it correctly. It should be understood, in spite of feeling hatred, that the Creator sent it so that I recognize my egoism, how much more it is revealed in me now, and that is why, instead of love and agreement with the group, I feel hatred; I must rise above it and ask the Creator to help me. Don’t try to rise and get out of the pit you fell into by yourself, but ask the Creator to help you get out of it together with Him. Then you will have some contact with Him. This is why He arranged this fall for you.

We need to prepare for falls. Our workshops are especially good preparation for them.
[98637]
From the Virtual Lesson 1/20/13

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