Looking at the creation as a whole, in every object, in every part of it, we can recognize a measure of desire: desire to preserve itself, its properties, its state. This pertains to any part of inanimate, vegetative, animal, and human nature. Each one is characterized by a particular degree of desire since desire was the only thing that was created. On our part, we just add to it when we have a chance to work above it.

At the still, vegetative, and animal levels, we live within desire and don’t understand how it can be changed in height, size, and application. On the other hand, a human degree in a person acquires a capacity to comprehend this, start wanting to change, and apply the desire in a different manner, and this ability to modify the application and realization of desire doesn’t let us rest.

We see how people live today: society dictates the size and nature of their desire, and they, like soldiers, strive to carry out the orders they receive. After all, they are given an impression that it’s for their own good. However, those who receive an additional need to work above their nature, above their desire, which is, in fact, nature’s entire material, are deprived of rest. They wish to learn, desire to know how matter, nature, can be employed, how to re-direct and “deploy” oneself so as to achieve something above nature. This is a totally different approach: not to be inside nature, but namely above it.

This is what the science of Kabbalah teaches: to use desire living not in it, but above it in order to keep attaining the upper reality. “Upper” means above desire, above the creation’s matter. We must learn how to govern desire to remain above it without sinking to the bottom, but, rather, going with the waves and using the breath of the wind, the “spirit” breathing over the sea. We need to live by something that lies above these “depths,” to breathe air, inflate sails with the wind and use the water solely to glide over its surface.

That’s what we gradually learn in this study. We learn to use our nature, the matter of desire, to control it from outside of ourselves, to restrict and turn it in the required direction, to verify and modify it, not as our nature dictates, but as we choose. This ability we can obtain with the help of the science of Kabbalah by studying the systems we have to know and as a whole, the system of the worlds, 125 steps of changes, calibration of desire. We figure out how to use it each step of the way in order to achieve something above it.

In addition, above it, we reach the degree of the upper force that created this desire in which all of mankind lives. We use the matter of desire solely to “ascend” over it and form for ourselves a spirit, equivalent to the upper force. This is the spiritual equivalent called “Human” (Adam).

Thereby, we use the matter itself and the force that created it; we construct ourselves from both. This is how a person becomes independent from matter, meaning desire, and from the force, meaning the Creator who created this desire, and gets on his feet on his own. Now, he is comprised of matter and spirit, but in the form he has found by himself and has chosen freely.

This is what our goal is, and we won’t rest until we reach it. That’s how we are made. Some will select this path by necessity, as simple workers. However, they will have to comprehend their task, although not at high degrees, not at the level of the root cause of creation. They will follow us, whereas we won’t be at peace until we attain the equivalence that we are to create on our own, the image of Man, free from both the creation as well as the Creator. From Him, we only learn how to build ourselves in His likeness, but the Creator does not obligate us to it. On the contrary, it is the independent evolution that allows us to realize that His form is the most correct one, the best, most desirable, and profound.

Yet, we do not accept the importance of this form automatically, but rather, work by way of “faith above reason,” become unplugged from the conditions of our material and the upper force, and in this disconnection from everything, attain the value of the property of bestowal which is the highest there is.

These things will unfold in us later on, but for now they already should be giving us a some sense of importance and understanding of the work that requires us to rise constantly above the mundane. We seek pleasure in part from knowledge, habits, and all types of values that have been planted in us. We strive to ascend just as high as possible and enjoy changes, even if it is not very pleasant for our matter.

We simply need to get used to it. Spirituality, or the new form, by way of small actions, time after time, pulls us higher and higher, a little more and then more. And spirituality should be something that we desire.
[98479]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/13, Shamati #213

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If a person intends to bestow upon others without any resistance, not against his will, then it is the same as the whole world does, as is accepted among different beliefs and fanatic religions.

There are many charities that help people in hospitals and in other difficult situations. Their desires are consistent with their actions, and therefore it is called “bestowal” only in action. After all, the action, the intention, and the desire are all in one direction, not meeting any inner resistance. So a person is in high spirits, feeling good about himself since he believes that he receives a reward in this world and in the next world.

We, however, act against our natural desire, and feel the inner resistance since we don’t want to bestow and to love others. First we discover an empty space inside us, and we don’t feel any inclination, attraction, or connection to bestowal. But when we begin to work by rising above all that, we come out into the spiritual space.

This kind of work really bears fruit. It doesn’t dull us like in the fanatic approach since there is a difference between receiving and bestowal. After all, our inner desire is to receive according to our nature, but if we rise above this natural desire and yearn for bestowal, looking for an environment, a society, that will help us build this attribute inside us, then we are obligated to draw the force of the Creator that will help us become bestowers over our egoistic desire.

Therefore, we need an environment that needs the Creator, since otherwise we will not be able to establish bestowal on top of receiving. Then we will be able to build the inner space inside us that will be filled with the Light, and in it we will start feeling and understanding all of the upper spiritual reality.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/22/13, Writings of Rabash 

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Devotion is required of us along the way; we are required to annul ourselves, to “take on the burden of Heaven,” which means devotion.

We see similar qualities in animals: If something bad happens to his owner or if his owner has a problem, a dog feels it and is very dedicated to his owner. Is that the same devotion we speak about here, or not?

What is the difference between devotion on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature and the level of the “speaking”? The slave gets used to his owner, feels his dependence on him, and is devoted to him, just like a dog. In what way is he different from a servant of the Creator?

Being enslaved to the Creator is devotion to a nature that is opposite from a person’s nature. I am in a state of submission and self-annulment between two polar points that have split. Inside me there is my desire to receive and in it, I feel my ego, different claims, problems, and disappointments. I feel all that and do not nullify it, it lives inside me, but above all that, I gradually acquire recognition and the understanding, spiritual devotion opposite to my egoistic property.

The gap between these two forms of nature that are inside me is clear, understood, and familiar. My devotion rises above my reason, and the greater the desire, the higher I rise above it. In an opposite manner, the gap, the tension, the distance between the egoistic nature and the altruistic nature, between the intention of in order to receive and the intention of in order to bestow, for myself or for the Creator, the gap between these two poles grows increasingly larger.

It says: “He who is greater than his friend, his desire is even greater” and “a person cannot fulfill a Mitzva unless he failed in keeping it before.” It means that we have to fall and to feel a greater depth of our ego, of the evil inclination, of the snake, and only from there can we rise to higher levels of selflessness and complete devotion.

These two points do not annul one another. Instead we fill the distance between them with recognition, understanding and our love that rises above hate: “Love will cover all transgressions.” This is the difference between our spiritual devotion and religious devotion.

Religion requires a person to follow with his eyes closed, and the less he understands, the more devoted a believer he is. He does whatever he is told, without trying to understand. The fewer doubts he has, the more surely he advances with the flag in his hand and the fanatic look on his face, and the more respectable he is considered.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, however, it is the doubts, the confusion, the different problems and inner clarifications that generate rich discernments, thoughts, and inner ideas. They are all opposite from the Creator and the work in order to bestow, but above them, a person builds his devotion, since thanks to them he can understand and feel.

Based on that, he builds the understanding and feeling, perceives the world from one end to the other in the two forms, in all possible feelings and understandings. He doesn’t have a narrow perspective and doesn’t advance with his eyes closed, but fully recognizes the ego, and thus builds his attitude to the attribute of bestowal by understanding the property of the Creator.

He raises the attribute of bestowal above the attribute of receiving; independently and consciously, he consents to surrender himself to serve and love. This becomes his Creator.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/22/13

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We have to respect the feeling of confusion, darkness, blurriness, and powerlessness. It says “respect the sons of the poor since the Torah will come from them.” It is these poor who have nothing, who feel a growing emptiness in their hearts and minds, who are unable to concentrate and find their way around in these states, who are thus preparing their vessels in which they will receive the Torah, the Light that reveals to them all the spiritual discernments.

So the main thing is to get used to studying in darkness and in the light. This is symbolized in the Kabbalists’ tradition of beginning their studies at midnight. This is what Kabbalists did throughout the ages, and even King David used to get up at midnight in order to “awaken the dawn.” It is because at midnight the Zivug (coupling) of the upper Aba and Ima begins in order to awaken the vessels to receive the Light.

If a person wants to attain the Light, the state is called “day.” He has to try and awaken the vessels to receive the Light in their lowest and darkest state, when he is “asleep” and doesn’t feel himself.

We don’t notice these discernments yet, but we will soon learn how to discern them in order to see everything in the darkness and in the light, and to know how to use every state in the clearest and most conscious manner. The main point now, after the ascent we attained in the convention, is not to leave the work in such times, which are not really understood, are not pleasant, and which do not fill us.

Such times come along so that we will face them, and despite the heavy feeling in our egoistic desires, which don’t understand the darkness, we will remain in connection and rise, and thus build the vessels for the next ascent.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/22/13

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Question: What is the relationship between quantity and quality of a congress? When there are more of us, how does it reflect on the quality?

Answer: Today, considering what state the world is in and what this puts before us, it is our duty to admit everybody and in this broad audience preserve ourselves as the nucleus. We need both factors together.

We can’t screen out those who don’t attend lessons daily, do not pay maaser, and so on. The congress will not be more powerful because of it. We should be guided by what Nature demonstrates to us. The Creator opens the doors to everyone, although the public is not in a hurry to enter. I hope that in the coming year, people will “digest” and understand the events of the recent years, including the crisis, despair, and all the rest. It takes time: A person reads something, hears about something, and little by little, it settles down in him until he sees how the world becomes “bleaker,” and “dissipates” without more to offer.

I hope that in this year, along with the broadest dissemination, we will be able to accomplish something…
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/13, Shamati #213

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The most unusual thing in the wisdom of Kabbalah occurs when a beginner hears the message about “love, unity, and mutual inclusion” that are totally contrary to our natural desires. In the beginning, Kabbalah appears to us as a conventional, hard science: “I want to understand the system, study phenomena behind the façade of nature, comprehend the upper force and the principles of Its work, learn the laws of universe, and find the hidden causes of history…” In other words, a person tends to study concrete formulas, and then he discovers that it is all about love.

Is there anybody who seriously addresses this subject? Hollywood? Serious people are sitting in Wall Street, whereas love is the domain for odd fellows and “Bohemians…”

It takes a lot of time to start understanding the message of love. It takes years to have this information “go under the skin” and reach one’s heart. Our egoism is not willing to accept things like love, nor does it allow the message that only through unity we reveal a new reality and that only due to love we rise to our highest state, become more kind-hearted and reveal new worlds. Our material experience doesn’t provide any examples of the above, nor does it prove these statements in any way.

Some people are more prone to accept these ideas; to others, this message is really hard to apprehend. It depends on the readiness of our souls and on the “depth” of the desire (Aviut). It also requires persistence, diligence, and a sense of utter necessity to achieve this state. If both factors, a strong rejection and an overwhelming attraction, force us to stay on our path no matter what, then, even before we reach love, we still discover that everything depends on our qualities. The upper Light influences us and triggers various impressions in us; thus, we begin realizing that our internal changes either shut or open the image of the upper world to us.

Something “clicks” inside us and we begin seeing much more and having keener sensations than ever before. We keep penetrating into the structure of reality; we acquire a clearer and wider understanding of it… Everything depends on our heart. It is the place where we sense and distinguish between everybody and everything that are within the field of our vision and sensations.

Then, the “door” shuts, as if a black cloud descends on our feelings and intellect, and now again, we stop understanding and feeling anything, as if we are walking in a dream and can hardly cope with our responsibilities. Time passes, the door opens again, and then, it shuts again. So gradually we begin realizing that everything depends on the level of openness or closure of our mind and senses.

And then we penetrate deeper into the core of the mechanism that closes and opens the doors. After we go through all these states many times, we realize that the “door” leads us not just somewhere outside us, but to others. When we feel extremely close to them, our eyes and ears open and we advance. When we are farther from them, everything shuts down.

This is the way the Light impacts us, thus gradually forming the connection between our feelings and mind and by building our attitude to our friends, adding more mutual care, deepening sensations and openness to each other, making us familiar with the upper world and the upper state. At this phase, a person realizes that this world is not somewhere in the clouds, nor it is behind the horizon, but rather concretely in our sensations: The more we open ourselves to others, the higher we rise.

Gradually, we approach the “edges” and start distinguishing the details of our desire to receive. We separate it into steps and levels; in view of that, we build the desires next to the mind.

It takes time. We have to include ourselves into the group as much as only we can; literally “throw ourselves” into the group as into the sea; “lose” ourselves in it, dissolve into our friends. Due to this kind of “self-annihilation,” one “soaks” in others and realizes that “it’s not important what we get from this connection and mutual-inclusion. Everything that comes from our friends is the territory of the Creator. Everything that is in me is the territory of the evil inclination, the “angel of death.”

When one realizes this much, the requirement “to love one’s friends” emerges. One feels that he needs them and strives to relate to them as if they were very close to him, as a mother who permanently internally embraces her children in order to protect them from harm.

From this point on, it gets much easier to advance, since one has already built one’s path correctly: One already knows that everything is inside him, inside his sensations, in his attitude to his friends and neighbors who in fact are the parts of his own soul. He understands that instead of seeing externality in the shape of inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature, he has to observe “external” details that are produced by his mind and senses as something that belong to him, but at the same time is separated from him by the “cloud” and “dust” that cover one’s perception of the world. It means that one has to return a clear picture even though there is a confusion created by the evil inclination; he tends to merge with the correct picture of the world and become one unified feeling and intellect.

This is the essence of our work. If we manage to do it, we gradually will ascend the ladder of the worlds. To the degree of our ability to return our “external” parts, we sense them as being filled with the upper Light.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/16/13, “Love of Friends

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Now, after the “Flame in the Desert” convention we will go through many states. We have attained a certain level of connection, unity, detachment from matter, the importance of annulling ourselves before the friends, different inner spiritual discernments that are close to a real spiritual level.

We have no control over the process we are going through, and we advance according to the order of the Lights and vessels. We are between them like between a millstone, and different forces constantly operate on us advancing us towards the goal, according to our understanding, agreement, will, and support of their action.

Eventually, all the work of the “millstone” is only according to our agreement, that can be under the influence and pressure of sufferings, or by the help of the Light that Reforms. We don’t do anything by ourselves; this work is called “God’s work,” but we have to agree with the actions and want it to take place, although it is against our basic nature.

Since this work is against our nature and we feel it as very difficult, against our will, it allows us to become free, to have freewill and to transcend our nature.

Now after our convention, we go through very special states, and we must use them as quickly as possible to rise above them a few steps ahead. Therefore, these days are very important for whoever participated in the convention physically, mentally, and virtually. We now have to process everything we have received in the convention correctly, as much as we can, and to continue our advancement forward quickly.

The processing of the states is in clarifying the importance, who do we attribute it to, is it important that we have somehow discovered the connection with the Creator, with the spiritual space, with self-detachment, with the new space in which we can really live and after which there is an opening, and if I am born there, then I am born in a new reality, in some matrix, in a new dimension; or do I sink into the current of ordinary life and return to my ordinary animal life?

It is very important to rise above our matter, above the desire to receive that actually pulls us “by our feet” back into the abyss of the ego the moment we want to rise a bit. We, however, have to try and rise.

This effort can succeed only if we operate together, like in the convention where we attained a new level only thanks to the connection for which we have received powers from Above and felt that there is something above nature.

This is how we should continue now, so that all the forms of the egoistic desire and the thoughts that cross our mind will immediately be incorporated in the new ascent. Then we will constantly, every minute, rise higher and higher and will not wait until all these awakenings that the Creator is sending us in the form of the “hardening of the heart,” as an addition to the egoistic desire, as strange thoughts, as blurring and fatigue, will add up to a “big account,” and then we would have to go through them through the path of sufferings and different blows.

On the contrary, every moment we have to go on and on and thus “one penny is added to another and they make up a big account.” We shouldn’t wait until these “pennies” accumulate by themselves; it is much more difficult and disrespectful in the eyes of the Creator; in the eyes of the Creator it is respectful when you don’t leave Him.

So while reading The Zohar we have to connect and to think about how to receive help from Above in order not to break away from the great appreciation we feel towards self-annulment, connection, love, self-detachment and adhesion to the Creator.
[98419]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/13, The Zohar

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Question: What made the great success of the convention that has just ended: the special work during the convention or the preparation for it?

Answer: During the convention we don’t do any work. The convention is not meant for working; it is a “gathering” of all the efforts we made before. We have worked for many years, and the convention is the fruit of our work.

Everyone has received a whole measure from the convention, but it is revealed according to his understanding and his awareness. It is like a small child in our world that is full of different modern devices, machines, etc. but who only sees his few toys. This is what he can perceive in the meantime in his mind and heart; this is what’s important for him.

We have received much more than what each one reveals now. A new and very important level has been revealed, but each one is impressed by it according to his exertion, according to the desires and the thoughts he has developed for this level. Therefore, one perceives it like a two-year-old, another like a four-year-old, a third as a ten-year-old or a fifteen-year-old. There are those among us who have perceived it in its full form, which means that they already feel the complete feeling of the first spiritual vessel that should open up now.

I hope that very soon we will advance towards this revelation and acquire it. The spiritual development is like the corporeal one, and it grows faster according to our advancement. See how slowly humanity is developing, having been in the first state for thousands of years, until it reached to the age of slavery, and then it went on very quickly to feudalism, and even faster to capitalism, and much faster than that to the postindustrial society. The pace of development increases exponentially and more and more changes take place in a shorter time.

The same will happen in our spiritual development, the main thing is to continue! And not to just forget, but to continue this level that we have attained: the same level of clarification, connection, and self-annulment. Just don’t leave what we have attained: hold on to it like a tick, or like a bulldog, and advance further.

Learn from the snake that actually symbolizes our nature in the way it swallows its prey deeper inside it until it swallows it fully. We too have to reach this level, not to leave it, but rather hold on to it very strongly until we swallow all of it.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/13, Shamati #26

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Question: I see that Pharaoh steals all the fruit of my labor and I ask myself: When will I finally reach the point of desperation regarding my own strength? I feel as if I am driving a car but somebody else is behind the steering wheel.

Answer: That’s right; you are not the one steering your car. You are only in charge of your desire to advance. As to how many times you will have to repeat one action, that can’t be known in advance. But the pace depends on you: how frequently your states will change and how quickly you will be able to pass through them. Suppose according to the root of your soul you have to pass through 8000 states until you reach the first spiritual degree where your will to receive will turn to bestowal because of the Light the Reforms.

You have to pass through these 8000 actions, but can do so in two years or you can stretch it to 20. That’s your choice since you have freewill in to what extent you will hasten your advancement. But you will certainly pass through all the necessary discernments, whether it is in this or another lifetime. It all depends on you.

You complain that the Pharaoh is stealing all the fruit of your labor, but that is why it is written that all the beautiful cities built by the sons of Israel in Egypt were inherited by the Pharaoh. It is as if Pharaoh stands behind you, stuck to your neck, and collects all the fruit of your work. This is what leads a person to the point of desperation in the work and to prayer. But you cannot give up!

Besides, every time when you move forward and exert more effort, you still gain wisdom and attain the method and new meanings. You get absorbed by darkness, disappointment, helplessness, and indifference. You get sick and tired of everything and lose faith that there will be a breakthrough any time soon—these are the worst states that can be. Each more advanced state brings even greater descent, desperation, apathy, and realization that it’s impossible to reach the desired.

It goes on like this, until reaching the very last “impossible,” which is regarded as crossing the Red Sea, when you have completely lost faith that man is capable of it and that the Creator is. You decide that it just can’t happen; you are shown that such is your nature and nothing can be done about it and all you have left is to return to the trivial life.

And then one makes up one’s mind to still leap over this impossibility, and a person is shown the condition of how to connect: what it means to become one man with one heart in reality. And if he agrees with it, he receives his first spiritual degree.

The first degree he receives only as a single point regarded as Moshe, and it pulls (mosheh) him from egoism, from exile, while in the rest of the will to receive the “golden calf” becomes revealed against it.

Afterward, a person enters the desert, where problems await him each step of the way and it’s infested with snakes. It is no longer one great serpent, one big ego, but rather, a multitude of little wasps that keep biting a person from every side, his various egoistic attributes. Yet, they help him to keep moving forth on the spiritual ladder, acquiring the property of bestowal.

Along this entire path, I see only two vital qualities guaranteeing success: nullification of oneself before the teacher and the group, and endurance, patience, and tenacity in any circumstances, no matter what may come up. These are the two attributes with which you, like a stubborn ram, keep breaking through, leaping in one direction, regardless of what is going on, despite any internal and external obstacles. And this speeds you up and makes you succeed.

Otherwise, don’t waste your time; it’s better to go enjoy life. But the majority hang in the middle between one and the other state, and sadly, they come to the finish line empty-handed.
[98153]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/16/13, “The Prayer”

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