Every time we want to transition to the next state we have to build it. After all, it doesn’t exist: There is no spiritual world, no Creator—nothing. I build everything within me, and everything there depends solely on me, on my “construction.” It means that when I ascend to higher levels, I have to form and visualize them in front of me: “What will my next step of advancement look like?”

My next step is as follows: There is no “us,” only “I”; everything is inside of me and a part of me. Each time I rise to a new step, I see the whole world inside of me, in my perception and sensations.

Then again, the world seems to me as a place that is alienated, separated, and shattered into various conflicting states. So, I have to assemble all its parts back together again—within me, and to relate to everything with love and unity, without any exceptions.

This is the way I ascend all 125 steps, each time increasing the range, the resolution of the picture of perception. With each step, I take a deeper look into the shattering and correct it to the corresponding degree. It’s my perception and my sensation that was broken. It fractures our unity into small splinters, partly distant, opposite, and hateful to me.

In his “Preface to The Book of Zohar” Baal HaSulam writes: …we should be so grateful to His Providence for having created that polished mirror in our brains, enabling us to see and perceive everything outside of us. This is because by that He has given us the power to perceive everything with clear knowledge and attainment, and measure everything from within and from without. Without it, we would lose most of our perception.

In other words, we would never attain the only authentic state that exists. We simply would not get any closer to it, nor would we understand or sense its depth if we didn’t go through the shattering. This is why our authentic state is deliberately broken into pieces and each of them opposes, contradicts the others. What once used to be one whole now is split; the parts that were similar now are antagonistic. It’s beyond our imagination.

We are trying to reconnect them through our own efforts by bowing our heads and consenting with our friends. I want to fill the gaps between them; I would do everything I can to reconnect them together inside of myself due to my love and correct attitude. By persuading myself in this way, I come to a profound understanding of the essence of Malchut of the world of Infinity, which in fact is my unified soul.

The depth of our realization depends on the revelation of the shattering and the understanding of its opposite, the wholeness. The gap between them is so huge that it requires special tools, the vessels. So, it’s said that we have to enlarge our vessels “620” times, meaning to reach a depth that is comparable to Infinity. Besides, in the gap between both states (broken and complete) we reveal the Lights of NRNHY.

Actually, everything we feel in this world is built upon contrasts: bitter and sweet, dark and light, hatred and love, etc. It even applies to music and perception of colors. We perceive everything as the difference between its corrupt and corrected forms; one is always opposite the other.

So, Infinity has always been perfect. We are now talking about our attainment: When we sense something that doesn’t have its opposite, we can only feel the tiny Light of Nefesh–de–Nefesh. In our world, no single particle of any substance lacks two poles, a plus and as a minus. Even an electron (charged negatively) or a positron (charged positively) both still hide opposites within them, which are yet to be discovered. After the shattering occurred, there is not even the tiniest particle that doesn’t contain its opposite, even though it presents itself to us only in one aspect, through one borderline, without revealing the other.

Initially, while the creature was in the world of Infinity, it was in a totally unconscious, mindless state. It had nothing to make comparisons with; there was no space between the two poles—a place for thoughts and perception.

Then, the Infinity split into the parts of the world of Nekudim. Now, we can understand and sense its depth. This is the perception of reality, to which we aspire. It’s our life, an unprecedented harmony, a symphony of minuses and pluses that encompass the entire attainment, the whole understanding between the two states: corrupted and whole.
[89214]
From the North Convention of Unity 9/20/12, Lesson 2

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Question: Should we decide what we want while reading The Zohar, or should we try to find out what we really want?

Answer: A person asks about one thing and thinks about something else and wants another thing. The Light that is focused on the vessels evokes something totally different in him, which is different from his thoughts, from his question, and from his desire.

All that is required of us is only the awakening. If we can awaken ourselves correctly, then everything will work as it should. The right awakening comes down to one thing—have I tried to be with everyone, which means to be in a vessel, in my true desire, now while reading a passage in The Book of Zohar; not in myself, in my desire and only from there to think and to ask, but to be incorporated in my external vessel, not feeling any need for that or any taste in it, and to ask for connection with the friends by rising above my need and my taste? Did I do that or nor? If I did, then my efforts are correct and I begin to receive different positive and negative spiritual results.

But if my efforts were aimed at understanding and at feeling what is in The Book, these are efforts in my egoistic vessel and so accordingly the results I get are in a totally wrong direction. That’s what happens until I evoke enough Light upon myself, since I am still somehow connected to others and this Light somehow guides me in the right direction.

We should understand that our actions here have to be very accurate. On the part of the Light everything is simple: If you are in a vessel upon which it shines, then you are in contact with it and it works with you, and if you aren’t, then it doesn’t. You have to be in front of the attribute of bestowal, which is the Light. You cannot be connected to the attribute of bestowal at all if you stay inside your “self.” To the extent that you exit yourself towards others, you approach the Light.
[90025]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/11/12, The Book of Zohar

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Question: What criteria can help a person to control his wholeness and integrality?

Answer: The criteria are very simple and clear: for a human being to rise above his egoism and to relate to all members of society according to the principle of “love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Question: This criterion cannot be measured. What does it mean, “to rise” or “love”?..

Answer: This criterion can be measured indirectly. We can never measure our internal efforts that are oriented towards overcoming egoism, nor can we calculate to which extent we are able to include the desires of the other into ours and then try to fulfill them by using resources and aspirations of our own.

So far, it’s not under our control. We don’t penetrate into the essence of nature (the still, vegetative, animate, not to mention the speaking level) deep enough in order to sense the internal forces that govern us. We are speaking here about measuring man’s inner world.

There are some people who manage to rise above their egoism and thus can measure and accurately define both their egoistic and altruistic desires, the forces that act within these desires, the possibilities of transition, and the ways and methods that help them make all sorts of movements within their qualities. However, it’s available only to those who have gained control over themselves and their properties.

It can only be measured by somebody who has discovered the spiritual structure (one’s sensory world) and is able to easily move inside it. When this structure is revealed to him and all these qualities are already sorted, then he clearly sees correlations among them. He can measure his egoism. He comprehends the power and capacity of his personal properties, feelings, and so on, which are not that numerous after all. For him, they are not a secret anymore.
[89516]
From KabTV Program “Integral World: Formula of an Integral Society” 7/1/12

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article 42, “What Is that the Acronym Elul in the Work”: For this reason one is given a form of blackness from Above, and then one sees if one’s work is in purity.

In other words, if one can be in gladness in a state of blackness, too, it is a sign that one’s work is in purity, because one must be glad and believe that from Above he was given a chance to be able to work in order to bestow.

If a person feels glad, above all his moods, it is a sign that he is already detached from his desire to receive and that he can advance.

This is always the test: Are we immersed in our desire to receive or can we rise above it to some extent? A person doesn’t ask to be in a good mood in order to continue his work. On the contrary, he is happy about the darkness, about the bad mood and the confusion. Above all this, he is ready to make a slight effort.

It doesn’t matter what mood we are in, we don’t see it as important, but rise above it. If things look bad in the vessel of receiving, I can work above it in bestowal, in unity and in love of friends. It is a sure sign that I am on the right track. All our work is in feeling the darkness in the vessel of receiving and making even the slightest effort above it, yearning for a connection, for bestowal.

This is why we have to perform the right exercises, to play games by which we learn. Of course, it isn’t easy for a new student during the first few years, but then he begins to feel the gap between his feeling and his intention, which means between two different systems.

He may feel good and then he may feel bad, and he understands that it doesn’t matter, that he should work only above these feelings and that time after time they will provide him with different details of the perception of reality that are necessary on the way to learning about the different forms of the Creator’s Providence. A person accepts all the feelings—the good and the bad ones—as a benefit, in order to rise above them and constantly keep the right direction towards the goal.

We have to constantly make these efforts as we try to preserve the energy of the ascent that enables us to use the time and the means we have rationally, so that we can also use it during a descent. True, it is very hard, but at least we have to try. Thus we gradually detach ourselves from the vessel of receiving and move on to another kind of work, already living in the intention and not in the feeling.
[90042]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/11/12

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It takes a very long time until, against all the desires and the rejections, a person can convince himself that it is essential to establish a relationship with the friends. It takes a very long time until he clarifies all this and convinces himself, after many ascents and descents.

Gradually by learning from all the states and actions he has been through, by checking himself, he begins to understand what is good and what is bad for him. First he thought that it was good when he had new feelings, understood and felt more, and thought he was respected and powerful. Now he gradually begins to understand that all these pleasant feelings do not indicate his spiritual advancement at all. On the contrary, they indicate that a person is drowning more and more deeply into his ego, into the desire to receive, the matter of creation.

First a person thinks that advancement depends on studying the theory, on knowing the material. He goes through the books wanting to understand them, believing that by that he will be able to approach the goal. Then he rushes to disseminate this knowledge, thus hoping to get a reward for his efforts. He tries to break through in different directions by revolving around one central point: love for the other.

He reaches it only when he has no other choice, and is in total despair of attaining anything by himself. As a result of all these actions the Light illuminates him, and he begins to understand and to feel that the entrance to the spiritual world opens only where his heart connects with the heart of the friend.

Through this point of connection, where the hearts come in contact, I exit my heart and penetrate the heart of the friend, so that in the heart of the friend I will discover my spiritual world. This is what each of us does with relation to the friends.

It takes a long time to do this, since it has to be in the heart and not in the mind. The mind becomes only an external tool. Thus a person advances in the right direction and discovers the most distant and hateful state of all the states in this world.

Previously he couldn’t even imagine that this is the goal of life. But this is what he has to reach, so that the goal of his life will be the connection of the hearts of all the people in this world into one heart.

We have to be patient with ourselves and with the friends that go through different external states. Everyone needs his own time and form of development until he finally discovers that there is no other work but the love of friends.

The more you take your time in this process, the more you succeed. People who think that they can start this work immediately usually burn out quickly. This recognition requires an adaptation period, a time for all the other types of work to “dry up” so that from all his experience and his efforts a person will feel despair. Then, with the help of the Light that Reforms he will understand and feel that nothing will help him except connection. This is when his work begins in the right place.

Since we are connected in one general network with all the people in the world, we pass on this feeling and this understanding to everyone. Thus the world begins to talk about the need for stronger connections among people, which can save humanity. The more we work on ourselves and the greater efforts we make, the more Light we will draw upon ourselves according to the law of equivalence of form that also pours into the external vessels, to all of humanity and so this idea reaches everyone.
[90034]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/11/12, Writings of Rabash

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Please know that if you go alone, you will never have the forces needed. The same path that is possible to pass within a year will take you fifteen years to pass, and, in the end, you won’t reach any result, except for recognizing that you need the group.

However, if I work correctly with the group, then always at the time of a descent, it will awaken me. And it is not necessarily through obvious physical methods, but it will come from above as an inner awakening after I have joined myself in connection with the group. At the time that I am able to, I constantly think about it: How can I attain connection where there is my exact place, within which I am included, like in a “puzzle?” I want to feel my place in this puzzle and constantly think about it, only about the connection. After all, this is the place with which I associate the future revelation of the Creator, which will connect us.

If I constantly invest my efforts in this, then it can’t be that I will fall and am left without any forces. My friends will help me.

Imagine that, like an element of a mechanism, I am a part that is included in a system. I constantly insert this force within this system, the desire to connect, by awakening the others. And, at a certain moment, I die; in this element, the ego suddenly grew, and it can no longer do anything, standing still like a car with a flat tire. And, then immediately, to the extent that I “inflated” the others, they now begin to work on me.

In our body are the same processes; all the time there are ascents and descents, contractions and expansions, absorption and emission of various substances in different systems. So the body constantly operates, and that is called being alive

To live means that there is a time to give and a time to receive. This is how each cell in the body operates, large or small. And, if I do not, then there won’t be any life. I can receive awakening from above, but only in order to awaken myself and return myself again to work with the environment. The environment is like a battery for my efforts, which then return to me.

First, I need to do everything in my power. I can’t say that now I am in a descent and wait until the group will give me strength. In any case, I need to invest efforts according to how much strength I have left, and then begin to receive forces from the friends. I just can’t fall into their arms in advance.

You will be convinced from your experience that it works specifically in this way, and huge accumulations of strength will be revealed to you. Take as much as you want. It’s like on a long run when your strength is gone, but you continue to run anyway, and then you pass the critical point when you get a second wind.
[89831]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/7/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The correction cannot take place at once; it is done gradually, step by step, since it is about the Reshimot (reminiscences) that remained after the shattering. It is the correction of the shattered vessels that must first each be clarified. Before that, there must be the clarification of the first vessel in order to build the next big vessel on top of it and then the next vessel, which is even bigger.

It is because everything is shattered, and the shattering can be corrected only in small parts, each part individually according to its level of shattering. The whole spiritual structure is made of discrete vessels that are connected by so many ties that they become one integral analog system.

It is like water that is made of separate drops, each of which is connected not only to the drops next to it, but to all the other drops, and not through other drops but directly. If you are in the world of Atzilut you are directly connected to Moses and to Rabbi Shimon.

So there is a difference in how the vessels are corrected after the shattering. It seems that we are connected to some friends by chance, thus joining some spiritual system and some Light. But by that, we activate an infinite number of ties. So the correction is gradual since it requires our clarifications.
[89770]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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If during the lesson you hold on to the right intention, you would feel a great spiritual filling during this time. It is all according to the customer’s desire: What you want is what you get. A great Light is revealed during the lesson and it is a pity if you don’t use it.

A spiritual filling indicates that your previous raw desire is being attracted to spirituality, like GE. Then it connects with the desires of others, with AHP, that portray the Creator for me so that I will fill Him. This is what fills me; I am filled by bestowal. Just like a mother who is happy when her baby eats, wiping his round cheeks with pleasure. The fact that she filled him is her filling.

It is the same with me; I have no other goal in life but to fill the friends. By filling them, I fill the Creator. I use my vessels to fill their needs, to provide them with what they want. They want to advance towards the goal, to feel its greatness, and I provide them with that. I only evoke them positively: increasing the greatness of the goal and of the Creator by acting like the Light with regards to the vessels.

You should leave the lesson with great joy for having been in contact with the eternal infinite system, in contact with the Creator. Even though, in the meantime, this contact is unclear and unexamined, I still come out with a plan of what I am going to do from this moment onward. We should renew the fixed plan each time so that it will be relevant for each specific day. I have to decide what I am going to do every day until the next lesson.

I change my plan according to the new awakening, the new attitude, both the physical and the internal. Try it and you will see that it is a varied change, which takes place in a different manner each time. Every day is different from the next and not like it seems today. We will be impressed by every point in our advancement, each time as if it is the whole world.

I must pass all the personal awakening I received during the lesson to the society so that it will grow to the size of the whole society. I want to pass all this in the form of my gratitude and love to the Creator. If I do that, it will return to me and will increase my desire even more, the awakening will be greater in order to bestow upon the friends again.

This work is in the thoughts and our desire. I don’t need to run after every friend trying to wake him up physically. Internally I must simply explode and externally I must work very calmly so as not to harm the friends. Externally I have to dress in the state of the friend, in his desire, in order to do what is good for him and not what I want.

Even internally you will later relate to yourself and work with the vessels of the others because you will treat yourself only as a machine that serves others. You will have no other interest in yourself.

How can you check if you are working correctly? If you want to awaken the greatness of the goal in the group—general bestowal and love in the group, in all of humanity and love of the Creator in order to delight in it yourself and to make others happy—this is enough to test.
[89763]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Only our persistence in feeling the necessity for connection can save us. Stop playing with other things hoping that something will change with time, enough of dealing with other things. All the related activities are necessary only in order to support the main thing: understanding the need for connection.

Here there must be an unceasing collective effort until we succeed. We mustn’t run away or divert from this goal in any other direction. Whatever we do is only meant to reinforce our efforts to connect. We should feel concern that goes from heart to heart, until we succeed. There are no concessions here and the conditions are known: constant fulfillment of the Reshimot (informational genes) according to the principle “I have labored and I have found.” If we can, we overcome, and if we can’t, we don’t. It must be a clear goal before our eyes and we must all mobilize for the mission.

There are new students who don’t understand yet and do not feel total despair; there are old students who have grown too weak and have found themselves caught up by routine. But on the whole, we have to strengthen one another. The prayer can only be for connection; otherwise, it isn’t heard. If we don’t yearn for connection, for mutual bestowal, to bestow upon the Creator, then everything else is all the “potion of death.” We must clarify this thoroughly.

The main thing is the general concern. Even if I don’t actually feel the concern in my heart, I must still show it to others. Even if I don’t feel enthusiastic about the goal of creation at the moment, I must still act before others. Otherwise I must not be part of the society.

It must be the main condition: A person is in the society in order to strengthen the hearts of the friends on the way to attaining the goal by increasing the importance and the greatness of the goal. If he doesn’t do that, there is no room for him here. It is better that a few people reach the goal, since otherwise what is the use of all the millions around us if they don’t attain anything and if the spiritual force doesn’t rule the corporeal level?

So the society should demand from everyone: You either keep your obligation in strengthening the friends as to the greatness of the goal, the greatness of the connection, or you leave. Just like that.

As for beginners, the mission should also be clarified to them to the extent that they can perceive it, since other than that there is nothing.

Many years go by before a person begins to hear to some extent and to perceive the message. But we have accumulated enough experience, powers, knowledge of the sources, and exertion in order to fulfill it. What is more, the external reality demands that we do it.
[89718]
From the Preparation for Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/12

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Everything is very simple: the Creator is revealed in the connection among us. Therefore I should look for where I can work on the connection among us all day long. Where are the wires that I can stretch in order to connect us to one another? Between whom should they be stretched, between which desires? How should I connect everyone, and by what? What is the work I have to do?

It says that the Creator is revealed in the connection among us. If there are ten people, it is enough. We only have to connect and He will be revealed. But have I taken any practical steps towards connection? We only speak about connection, and the Creator is not revealed. So what should we do? Continue until the Creator is revealed.

It is a law! He will certainly be revealed as soon as the correct need for connection compatible to Him arises and is sufficient for the very first level of revelation, Nefesh de Nefesh. Or we will open up the opposite relationship, the opposite of Nefesh de Nefesh, so we have an indication that a desire to connect occurred and was revealed in the opposite, and then we will cry out so that the Creator will correct us.

This outcry comes automatically, since one action leads to another action. So when we cry out, the Creator will correct the connection among us and will be revealed. The broken part will be revealed to us in the coarsest from of separation between ten people. Then we will discover an increasingly more delicate shattering.

First we discover the shattering in its most primitive form: 10 big parts of egoism, opposite from one another trying to tear one another to pieces with their teeth, instead of connecting and holding on by their teeth, like cogwheels. Then we ask for correction and connect more coarsely, and so the Light of Nefesh de Nefesh is revealed. This is already the revelation of the Creator to the created being.

This is a very coarse form of connection, which we are capable of at the moment, 1/125 of the connection. Then the same thing takes place, but the resolution is higher. There are the same ten Sefirot, but we penetrate more deeply into them by discovering more and more individual parts.

The main thing is to discover the first ten Sefirot, the first level, because this is how you are born and take on a spiritual form. Then in this form, you already begin to improve. The most difficult part is to overcome the first level.
[89715]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/12, Preface to The Book of Zohar

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