Question: What should we do so that the heart will decide to connect? We have decided to connect so many times, but we don’t know how to start?

Answer: We should build systems that will not let us escape. Imagine that we need to guard a very big herd in which there are many animals, cows, deer, bulls, sheep, etc. We have to know how to treat each type of animal: Some need watchdogs, and others need shepherds, and another type needs a fence so that they don’t run away.

We must provide each type of animal with the right kind of food: Some need grain, and others grass, and all need water. I have to take care of all these things. In the same manner, I also have to take care of the group and to provide it with everything that it needs so that we don’t escape but will successfully and securely achieve our goal.

We have to think about all that, and this is all our work. We have to attain the first ten Sefirot, which means the minimal connection among us. Even if it is egoistic and opposite from spirituality and holiness, it is already a connection. Now we are simply detached from one another, and no one wants to connect with others in any way. We are like cogwheels that do not connect by spinning independently.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/12, Preface to The Book of Zohar

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Connecting with a friend does not mean following his mind. When I subdue myself and hear what he says, it isn’t in order to later do what he says. I have to subdue my ego, but it doesn’t mean that I have to accept his advice.

I subdue myself before the inner connection among us. It is a totally different thing. I hear what he says, and I have to accept it as something that comes from the greatest in our generation before whom I subdue myself, discovering his inner level there, where he is in his spiritual height. Ein Sof is part of each of us; I actually subdue myself before this spiritual level in my relations with the friend, but not with regards to his corporeal opinions.

This is a very important subtlety. We don’t understand that all the worlds are in the relations among us, including the actual world of Ein Sof.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/12, Preface to The Book of Zohar

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I have to attribute all the powers I get to one source so that by acting together with them, I will be able to analyze myself and the whole world and then start operating in the opposite direction towards the source on my own.

There is me and this upper source, and between us there is the whole world. But the whole world can be compressed to the dimensions of one group so that it is clearer to me how I should work with it most effectively. Then I don’t have to clarify my attitude towards the whole world, towards all of reality, but the group is enough for the time being. All of reality is focused for me in this group, like through a lens.

If I work with nine other friends with regard to the Creator, like through a magnifying glass, then in this lens, I focus the whole world, the entire view of the universe: from me to the Creator and back to me. This is how the law that says that the general and the particular are equal operates. This is why the infinite creation with the infinite number of Partzufim and worlds are concentrated in the ten Sefirot that I determine, through which I relate to it. All of reality is now concentrated in the one particular section that I have chosen.

This is a great help for us and it is possible thanks to the shattering. Before the shattering there were no general and particular, which only appear after the shattering. Thanks to this we can achieve better results by attaining the general through the particular.
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From a Talk about Inner Work 9/30/12

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Not everyone can go through the first stages of preparation for the spiritual path and hold on to it. Many leave the group, the spiritual path, and the process of changing oneself. They go back to the external world and return to the life of the landlords by stopping the development of the point in the heart, which makes them the guests of the Creator—the Host of the Universe.

As we know “the opinion of the Torah is opposite from the opinion of the landlords.” If a person holds the opinion of the Torah, he feels that he is a guest and the Creator is the host. Therefore he wants to change himself in order to resemble the host.

This is called having the opinion of the Torah, placing the goal before him in order to be in bestowal and accordingly determine his states.

The first states, the ascents and descents we go through, are disconnected from our ordinary mind and feelings. A person sees that he changes completely. For the first time he begins to feel that some foreign dominion manages him. This uniqueness is typical of the changes that we feel in the process of our inner spiritual development.

Suddenly a person feels that he is under the control of some strange force. Before, he never had this feeling in his ordinary life. He always saw clearly whoever wanted to dominate him, which means that they were external forces. Here, however, for the first time he feels that some force descends and takes him over, ties him from the inside and controls him.

It is a very special feeling. I remember the wonder I felt when I first felt this. It is a very unpleasant and incomprehensible feeling until a person begins to get used to it and to acknowledge this action as the Creator’s work on him. Then he is already prepared to determine that this is so and to agree to it. Then he begins to evoke this feeling by himself and to expect it as you expect a meeting and a connection with someone you love.

He begins to value the Creator’s work on him and to expect that it should happen any minute. He appreciates the actual actions of the Creator and not their quality and how they are felt in his egoistic desire, which is not corrected yet. This means that he doesn’t care which states he goes through; what’s important is that the Creator should operate on him as much as possible.

This is what he prays for. He asks to go through as many changes as possible according to the Creator’s desire, since everything that the Creator does is for the good. Thus, his self-sacrifice is measured to the extent that he identifies with the Creator’s actions and expects them, of his voluntary slavery to the Creator, and the power of his prayer.

For the time being these are only the first stages of the spiritual work. Then the more controlled mutual work with the Creator begins, in mutual bestowal. A person already knows how to receive the powers for that and how to later work with them, how to start a dialogue with the Creator. Then he begins to work even with his desire to receive, by feeling the same tastes as the host and by feeling how the Creator tastes the refreshments and how he tastes it himself.

This whole path begins from the initial ascents and descents in which a person gets used to the domination of a foreign force over him.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/12, Shamati #21 

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The friends should make sure that I don’t fall and they should constantly think about me. I have to repay them for that because they also need this kind of support. Only if we mutually worry about one another, will no one fall or forget the goal. We will hold on to one another.

We have no chance of achieving anything if we don’t all support one another. If we don’t do that, we won’t exit the ego. This is mutual guarantee.

If I cannot think about others, it means that they don’t think about me. It is both the cause and the result that exist simultaneously under the condition of our mutual collective covenant. Then the Creator resides in it and thus fulfills our covenant. Without this we will undoubtedly forget about Him and start having foreign calculations by supposing that we advance and years may go by leading to nothing.

A person cannot keep on the right track by himself. Do you know how many moments we can count during a whole day in which we really advance: 3-5 seconds at the most! They are so few because each of us lacks the external support.

The vessel of my desire is external to me and I have to make efforts to attach it to me. If we don’t operate this way with regard to others, we do not operate correctly and therefore we don’t draw the Light that Reforms, because the Light operates only within our mutual work. It comes in response to our yearning.

If there are no such yearnings, the Light around us waits passively. “His honor fills the world,” but we have to activate it. We have to keep this main condition: mutual guarantee that is made of our collective interdependence on one another and of the obligation to everyone. Without it no one can succeed, even if we assess it from an egoistic point of view and what is more if it is about high intentions.
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From a Talk about Inner Work 9/30/12

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We are inside a Force called the Creator (Boreh). Since we don’t attain it yet according to the principle of “come and see” (Bo–reh), we give it different names according to the current measure of its revelation to a person.

I am in this Force’s field along with everyone else. The question is how can I induce its influence? Indeed, this is man’s entire work: How can I awaken this force so that it can raise me?

We descended from the spiritual height to the “zero level” on purpose, and now it is up to me to ascend back to the same height. In order to do that, I have to awaken the Light that Reforms upon me. There is no other force that can raise me to spirituality. I only have the means that exist on my level. The Creator wakes me from the dream by the first “sting,” and then I have to process what awakened me internally by special means: the group, the study, and the teacher.

So I turn to the Light that awakened me initially. I ask that it will influence me, and I do it consciously and knowingly. The Light only stings me time after time and by that I have to establish my attitude to it: What do I ask from it, what kind of influence do I expect, what do I want to attain, and so on. On the whole I picture to myself how to be in accordance with the One who “stings” me. I have to look for His form, His image and to ask from Him:

– “I want to bestow!”
– “How do you want to become the one who bestows? Is it really the one who bestows? What will your bestowal be like?”
– “Don’t you see? I study, I work in a group and in dissemination, I do all sorts of actions, and based on that I ask.”

If a person doesn’t perform actions directed at unification, there is no basis for his request. These actions make up the infrastructure that he can use to raise MAN, a prayer. I build this infrastructure between me and the friends from which the MAN, “a prayer of the many,” rises. I will never be able to ask for connection by myself. A prayer for connection can only be collective, at least between two people.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Where should I start the true demand to bestow? How is it possible to defeat the avid sinner inside me?

Answer: We don’t have a true demand for bestowal, and we cannot have one either unless the Light influences us. When the Light comes, you will be surprised and wonder: Is this the attribute of bestowal? It will be in contrast to everything you have thought.

It is a totally new thing and a person living in our reality has no preparation or premonitions as to what it is like. When a person has this delicate feeling, he begins to act, even unconsciously, in order to get closer to it. He begins to attach all his life, everything that he has been through, to this goal only, to attaining a drop of adhesion with the upper.

For the first time he has an inner inclination for something that is distant and from that moment on he begins to develop.

It is impossible to express this feeling in words, but a person cannot wake up if the upper Light doesn’t wake him. A person who has already tasted it knows what it is about, but as long as you haven’t experienced it yourself, you will not understand.

So it is impossible to ask for true bestowal unless you have attained this attribute. But thanks to this game, we advance when a person fills all the necessary requirements. Not knowing in advance how to do it, an inner awakening takes place, and it is as if a spark of Light is kindled and a person begins to feel that there is something that is different from this world, which is bestowal.

We just have to play the best that we can, everything that is in our power. I am sure that we are approaching this revelation, but everyone should ask himself at what speed.
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From a Talk about Inner Work 9/30/12

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The method of Kabbalah is meant to change a person until he turns into a human being (Adam), meaning the one who is “similar” (Domeh) to the Creator. Every given moment, day after day one has to work to uplift the importance of this method and persistently keep referring to it. After all, we are perpetually being thrown back from spirituality as if the Creator distances Himself from us.

It seems to us that our states continually change: We get closer to the Creator and then further away from Him. But obviously, it happens only in our sensations. In fact, new informational genes awaken in us, and we have to correct them.

One has 613 desires concerning the Creator. We’re not talking about material desires of this world, but about the desires specifically for the Creator. Only these desires should be corrected until they become similar to the Creator’s attitude to us, that is, are completely directed at bestowal and bringing joy to the Creator.

The Creator’s original thought in the plan of creation was to delight the created beings. A person also has to reach the same state so that his goal becomes to bring contentment to the Creator. Similarity of properties with the Creator elevates a person to the Creator’s level and he merges, unites with Him completely, thus reaching the ultimate goal.

On the way to achieving the goal, there are many stages of advancement. In the first stage, during thousands of  years of human history and by going through numerous reincarnations, man develops his regular earthly desire to enjoy. Reincarnations replace each other because the desire constantly grows and wants more and more as new informational genes (Reshimot) perpetually reveal themselves in it.

It’s not worth paying attention to bodies that live and die, but rather to the informational genes that reveal themselves in the desire to enjoy, thus giving us an illusion that we exist in our body.

In the second developmental stage, an aspiration to reveal the Creator, to find the meaning of life, emerges in a part of the desire, meaning in certain people. The first person who ever received this kind of desire was Adam HaRishon. This is why he is considered the First Man, and many others followed him. Such people are called Kabbalists as they accepted the method of correction that lets them reveal the Creator to the extent of the similarity of their properties to His.

Kabbalists also go through numerous developmental stages and reincarnations, but these reincarnations are quite different because one is in the attainment of the Creator, the governing force that rules nature.

Having received the first awakening towards spirituality, we enter a so called preparatory period. At this stage, we again go through many states, but this time they happen in accordance with the method, to the degree of our understanding of it. Even though the method is available to us in the form of reading materials, it has not been disclosed in our souls yet.

This is how we advance: by building the group and trying to inspire each other. The main work is in enhancing the importance of the method and transforming ourselves. Nothing can be changed in this reality except man himself; a human being is the only one who can be changed.

Besides, we have to clarify what exactly can be changed: only the intention on one’s desire. Desires per se are not changeable; leave them alone. Man has 613 desires that are related to the Creator, and he has to change intentions on these desires from egoistic to bestowal.

In fact, a person doesn’t feel that he has 613 desires, or that they are of an egoistic nature, or that he wants to take advantage of the Creator. For the time being he has no relationship with the Creator whatsoever, no connection with Him. Gradually, the connection with the Creator begins to reveal itself, thus letting us discover our evil inclination. If a person is still immersed in his egoism, he needs correction called the Torah, “a spice to it.” With its help, a person can change his intention by redirecting it from his own sake to the benefit of the upper force, which means that he has fulfilled a commandment.

Thus, according to the order of the desires that reveal in a person, he carries out 613 corrections (613 commandments), until he corrects the entire vessel and receives the entire abundance that the Creator has prepared for him—but with the intention to return it back to the Source. This is how one reaches the goal.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/7/12, Shamati #175

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Question: How does a Kabbalist who is in the spiritual world feel time?

Answer: Time doesn’t exist for a Kabbalist. Even for an ordinary person time is a conditioned perception. Time is a feeling in the egoistic desire that draws the axis of time from one point in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity).

The more distant you are from the world of Ein Sof, the more distant you are from the zero point of time. The deeper you sink into the desire to receive, the lower you descend down the ladder of the worlds and the more you stretch time. This means that the number of actions you have to perform in order to reach the point of Ein Sof stabilize the concept of time for you.

In your current state, you don’t make such calculations of the number of actions you perform. It is unclear and hidden from you since the vessel and the Light do not operate in you according to your desire. If the process isn’t according to your desire, it is concealed from you.

But the moment you begin to manage it yourself, you will understand what you are doing and then you will manage time. This is why it says: “Israel is above the stars and the constellations,” above the concept of time in its yearning Yashar—El (straight to the Creator).

In the meantime, however, you are not in this state, but under the domination of your ego, and so you don’t determine time, but it is time that determines your fate. So sometimes it seems that the day passes quickly, like one moment and sometimes each moment “lingers” for so long that it is hard to wait for it to end.

This is especially felt during the study. Notice that sometimes during the study of the The Study of the Ten Sefirot you fall asleep at a beginning of a word and wake up at its end and it seems like eternity. You wanted to sleep so much, which means that this time is so dear to you that it is very important for you to disconnect and to nap even for a moment.

The minimal distance that we keep on the road is stretched into a very long one because of our ego and according to how much you enjoy it. It is like Faust said: “Stop, Moment! You are so lovely!’”

In fact, a big strong ego stops time, just as Pharaoh wanted, so that even the corporeal body will be eternal, and so he was embalmed.

So unless we begin to control our desire, time will control us by slowing down or accelerating. In order to rise above time, we have to control our desire to receive. Time, motion, and location are the three parameters by which the desire to receive is revealed to us and by which it controls us.
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From a Talk about Inner Work 9/30/12

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The correction of broken desires happens step by step, thanks to the actions of the Upper Mother (Ima Ilaa), Bina of the world of Atzilut. A very complicated system works there, and it allows the influence to eventually reach the souls. However, behind all of this there acts the Light of Hochma dressed in the Light of Bina, which corrects desires, the fragmented souls.

When we pray, reaching out to the Light of AB-SAG, meaning the Light of Hochma dressed in the Light of Bina, we glorify its beauty (“beauty” in Aramaic is “Shufrah”). This is why there is a tradition to blow a special horn called a Shofar at a New Year celebration.

By doing so, we praise and proclaim the Creator’s governance, that is, the supremacy of the force that controls and leads us, the Light of Hochma dressed in the Light of Bina, which is called beautiful. The Light of Hochma (wisdom, beauty) manifests itself in us to the degree of our aspiration to acquire the property of bestowal (Bina). It’s considered the beginning of man (Adam), the one who strives to become similar (Domeh) to the Creator.

This explains why a Shofar symbolizes a New Year: It glorifies the reign of the upper force; it is our request for the Light of AB–SAG to come, to correct us, to fill, and to raise us by the ladder of correction to the upper King. All corrections that we anticipate to happen in the New Year are gathered in one day called the “head of the Year” (Rosh Hashanah) since potentially it already contains the tendency that we would like to practically implement during the year to come.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/16/12, Writings of Rabash

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