Question: What is important at the convention: that a friend is in a permanent cancellation of himself before the general flow or in the constant internal scrutiny of his state, in search of new sensations?

Answer: No, he has nothing to scrutinize his state with! He does not have the inner Light! He has nothing. He draws the inner Light by being included in the others, and the Light reveals these states in him. Otherwise, he will think with his mind and come nowhere. He must give way to the Light that will show his next inner, higher states.
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From a Virtual Lesson 7/29/12

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Question: What does it mean to ask the Creator?
Answer: Asking the Creator means that you are aware of the power that operates in the entire creation, you realize that you depend on it, and no one but It acts. You begin to feel that indeed this power exists, operates, and manages everything; then you have whom to turn to and with what.

To do this, you need to reveal that it is not you who acts, but He, for good or for evil, in which He acts, He does what you need that He would do. And He causes you all possible evil, so that you pay attention to who you are, to what extent you are not capable of anything. This is what is revealed to the world in the current crisis.

And then you start to advance in this awareness and to learn on what you really depend until you reveal Him, firstly, as the evil because you feel bad. Then, you move slowly forward, you begin to grow wiser and realize that all this is for your own good, and even if you feel bad, you know that He acts on you in order to lead you to the good, as a teacher. And although in the earthly feelings you don’t think it is good, you start to recognize His properties, become aware of his actions and understand that they are good.

You identify with Him despite the bad feeling. And this gives you a new mind and feelings, the spiritual rather than the earthly ones. And although the body is suffering, you want to adhere to the plan of creation, for this purpose more than to your body. Then you ask Him to raise you, you are performing such acts, that this upper one gives you new values so that you adhere to His mind and feelings, to His plan, to everything that He does instead of remaining in your desire to enjoy. To the extent you are asking this, to that extent, the value of bestowal and love becomes higher than reception and rejection of others. Thus, you are advancing further and further.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/12, The Book of Zohar

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At first, we attribute all of our vices and virtues to ourselves. When some bad quality is revealed within a person that is unbearable, then he begins to be sorry about his past or current actions. He especially regrets the past, either the immediate past or that farther away. However, because of this he doesn’t lower himself; it doesn’t make him humble although it may seem so to him.

Instead of regretting the past, he must decide above this feeling of regret, which is given to him by the Creator, that there is none else besides the Creator. After all, everything that happened in the past was done by the Creator. And man has no reason to regret it.

On the contrary, he must not give into his egoistic feelings supposing that he is now a righteous person if he repents for his bad deeds, his bad attitude toward someone, his mistakes, weakness and anger. After all, the Creator arranged everything this way and it is He who is showing man that he is not able to connect all of these events with the Creator.

That’s why one needs to regret not about the past or what happened, but about the fact that you are currently unable to attribute everything only to the Creator. And if that’s so, then where does the vanity of a man lie? Not in the fact that he was once bad, but in the fact that he can’t determine above all his perceptions, that there is none else besides the Creator. This is what his lowliness and weakness lies in.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/2/12

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All the events are revealed to a person because of his incomplete perception because of his uncorrected sensations. The world is depicted as incomplete according to a person’s perception and understanding. But we should understand that this imperfection is not in the external world, but in ourselves.

The current global crisis doesn’t develop around us but only in our perception. But the moment we correct ourselves, all the external problems will disappear. It is because the world doesn’t exist in itself, but only in our feelings; it is within us. As soon as we correct our attributes, all the disasters and the problems, the storms and the crises immediately disappear. None of this exists; the upper Light simply fills all of reality…

The difference between truth and lie is only within a person. First by clarifying all the blows that hit him, he should understand that there is a purpose and a reason for them, as it says: ” I am the first,” which means the reason, and “I am the last,” which means the purpose. These blows come so that a person could correct himself and realize that his perception of reality is false.

It operates like a “helpmate.” Since if this evil remained in a person, he would never reveal it. But since the evil is revealed on the outside, it is as if it is against him, and so a person can discern it. Our ego magnifies this evil many times by enabling us to see it in others in its most prominent form.

We look at our evil as if through a magnifying glass and see it 620 times larger. This helps us reveal it and it is called a “helpmate.”

I reveal this evil in others, but I understand that it is the opposite and that it is inside me, and thus I can correct myself. A person has to constantly check himself and whether he has the right perception: He must immediately turn all the evil that he sees on the outside, see it in himself, and correct it.

So when I identify with what is outside myself, I perceive this attribute as good for me. I accept it and am in it by correcting myself. Thanks to it, I can check myself with regards to the group, with regards to others, with regards to the Creator.

It turns out that the perception of the external reality helps me find the evil in me in my internal reflection, and to understand that it isn’t the world that is destroyed, but that it is me who is ruined, since this is how my evil is revealed. It is by correcting myself that I correct the whole world. This is called “judging myself and the whole world to a scale of merit.”

Let’s hope that we will be able to understand and to digest this, to perceive this picture and to convey this correct and healthy approach to the whole world, to all the people. Then, by the correction of man, we can heal all the problems. The first difficulty is to change my approach and instead of correcting the world, we should understand that we should correct ourselves.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the whole world we see around us is a reflection of our internal attributes, just like a mirror. But in order to keep it simple, we should explain that a person should correct himself first so that he can later correct the world. This is because a corrupt person builds a corrupt world and a corrected person can build a corrected world.
[84700] 
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/2/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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My wife is my mirror. After all, I never see my partner; rather, in him or her I see a reflection of my qualities. For instance, I don’t understand the beauty standard accepted in China. I look at a woman who has a reputation for being a true beauty and I wonder: I would never call her beautiful. To my taste, her face is too round, her eyes are too narrow, and her hair is too straight. It all seems unattractive to me.

But once I read an article by a Chinese journalist about the international beauty pageant “Miss Asia” and it said that the girl wouldn’t have won in China because her eyes were too big. I was simply stunned about how different our perceptions of beauty were—they were totally opposite. This is why we can’t understand each other.

It follows that I look at the girl in front of me and project upon her all my ideas about beauty. And if I don’t ascend above them, it will affect our entire relationship. I won’t perceive her as she is, with all of her true qualities, but will see in her the reflection of my properties, my taste.

When one looks at a person in an unbiased way, it’s impossible to determine at all whether he or she is beautiful or not. Ask any mother, and she will tell you that nobody looks better in the world than her child. As it is said, “love will cover all sins.”

And on the opposite, our ego, hatred will disfigure all beauty. The appearance of a person whom I hate also becomes unbearable. And although to be objective, I’m ready to admit that according to my criteria, he or she seemingly has a pretty face, I hate it for other reasons.

Only humans exhibit such attitude. Animals don’t look at the beauty; they value in each other power, the ability to procreate, to bear healthy offspring, and raise them till they become independent.

Man, however, is spoiled with the notion of beauty. In truth, this is not beauty, but the demonstration of my ego: special conditions I present to the opposite side, which exceed the necessary minimum required of the physical body.

If we looked at each other rationally, naturally, I would see me before me a healthy, strong woman whom I am ready to marry. After all, I see that she will keep house well. In the past, people used to choose a spouse based on this simple, egoistic principle. Or they took the social standing, wealth into account. People didn’t pay much attention to the beauty, but used to choose a spouse based on simple, pragmatic reasons: what is good for life.

More often, even parents used to choose and act as matchmakers for the couples, not the young people. This was customary in most cultures. Or they turned for advice to a clever, respected person. In our times we suddenly come to such distortion that it in particular obliges us to perform the correction.

Today we consider only whether we love each other or not. All movies tell only about such love. It wasn’t like that before. We don’t understand how people lived a hundred or two hundred years ago. Love or mutual attraction wasn’t in the field of view. Sexual attraction did play a role, but it’s not what today we mean by the concept of love. It has developed just very recently and spoiled our entire life…. Hence, if we use it correctly and “cover all sins with our love,” if we deal with our impulse to love or hate the other in this particular way, we will succeed.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 7/31/2012 

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Question: Baal HaSulam says that if we don’t keep the balance between the forces of receiving and bestowal, nature punishes us. Why should people be punished if they don’t know anything about it?

Answer: It isn’t “punishment” in the usual sense, but rather the way a person is evoked to self-correction. On the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, the “punishment” is the correction itself. On the other hand, on the human level the punishment is the awakening, the push so that a person will hasten his correction in “I shall hasten it” and not in “it’s time.”

In the meantime we develop according to the first three levels—the still, vegetative, and animate—and our development is a natural, instinctive process, which we call “according to schedule,” “in its time,” according to the plan. Kabbalists knew in advance the approximate dates of the different phases, but starting from the 15th century, the wisdom of Kabbalah became part of this as it was meant to speed up the process. Since then, part of humanity continues to receive “ordinary” blows and problems that lead to scientific, technological progress, while another part began to receive special blows, that are intentional and by which people are evoked and turn to the wisdom of Kabbalah. This awakening started from the Baal Shem Tov who actually opened the gates to the internal work for the Jewish people and founded its principles for the future generations. He didn’t write anything, but he disseminated the method to an unprecedented extent. He was an exceptionally practical man, considering the conditions in his time.

It was the Baal Shem Tov who initiated the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah for the masses. He had power that was given to him from Above, of course, to insert the sparks into the devastated nation that had been through troubles such as poverty and pogroms in Eastern Europe. He organized people and built a general network among them. He began to reveal to them the structure of the spiritual reality: the five worlds, Sefirot, Partzufim… then The Book of Zohar became accessible to the masses, which again was an unprecedented event. It was possible for the Hasidim to keep it on their bookshelf since the wisdom of Kabbalah was not forbidden anymore.

The first students of the Baal Shem Tov were great Kabbalists. They founded Hasidic movements and wrote books that the people could accept. These books, which are written in a very emotional, beautiful language made people accustomed to the internal work.

It isn’t by chance that Baal HaSulam thinks very highly of the Baal Shem Tov; after all, he started a true Kabbalistic revolution and opened the door that used to be locked for all those who are interested in it. He himself is still a mystery; we can talk about his actions but not about him.

His students carried on his work, each according to his character, and eventually all the Hasidic movements made a great step towards the fulfillment of the wisdom of Kabbalah among the people. People began to respect the spiritual attainment, the self-annulment and the love of others. Concepts such as “Love thy friend as thyself,” and “Worship the Lord with joy” became part of life. It was a time of very intensive internal work.

Only two hundred years later there was a descent, when the Hasidic movement became a “ritual” and the internality became externality again.

If we come back to the question, we are concealing the facts from ourselves; we don’t want to hear about them, and the moment we forget about the spiritual work, we are immediately back in our corporeal work. Here the ego that controls us operates and it conceals even the slightest connection with the Creator from us; it conceals His actions, His existence. We don’t want to know anything about Him.

It isn’t by chance that this concealment is so great; it builds the space for a person to stabilize himself. On the other hand, he is reminded of what’s important and is evoked and brought to the group. This process will gradually spread all over the world, but first there is the period of darkness, which is the basis upon which a person should build himself in the future.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/02/12, “Introduction to the Book of Zohar”

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The difficulty in our work is a result of the oppositeness of the states between which we have to balance ourselves, on what is called the “middle line.” On the one hand, you should be proud that you are following this road. Otherwise you’ll fall under the influence of the world around you and will become infected by its “viruses”: you’ll start dealing with money, respect, control, knowledge and many other empty goals the world is full of.

On the other hand, the internal work requires modesty and humility towards the group and Creator so that they’ll pass on to you the right values. If a person constantly carries on such a correct clarification—as to what he should be impressed by and what he should ignore, who he should be in contact with and from whom to keep away, he thus chooses the right environment. He builds this environment since it’s not just a group he has come to and in which he exists.

He determines what is important and what is not important in every society he finds himself, and so he builds his environment, as it says, “one chooses a good environment.” The environment doesn’t exist in its ready form, each of us has to clarify this concept and build an environment for himself.

This work is perpetual, not a onetime event in which it is enough to make a decision once and leave it at that. I have to make new decisions at every moment, and I realize that this is the only opportunity I have of free will. It is the only way that I can hasten my advancement while everything else are already the outcomes, which I don’t even touch.

I cannot change anything and if I make efforts I will only spoil my advancement. Not only will I not advance, as I don’t correct the only thing that needs to be corrected, but I also will spoil my attitude toward other things that were supposed to be the result of my good free will, as I treated them as the first main tool.

Besides, I have to clarify my attitude towards pleasure and suffering, since if the Creator is good and benevolent, why does He send me sufferings? Do I feel these sufferings because of my corruption or is it the Creator who treats me so cruelly? What can I attribute to Him, if anything?

A person clarifies these things until he comes to the conclusion that his goal is to attain the force of bestowal, the force of faith, which eventually turns into the force of love. Love is the force of connection by which a person receives the image of the Creator and becomes like Him, which is called to become Adam (human in Hebrew).

The Creator dresses in a person and gives one’s desire to receive the form of bestowal. If this is what a person demands, one reaches such a simple prayer and asks for simple mercy.

But all these actions are revealed together with great confusion and changes of different opposing states until eventually a person ends one’s clarification and it becomes clear that there is nothing but the simple upper Light.

The attribute of bestowal begins to dominate him and it determines the only reality he knows now. All the opposing, conflicting states were given to him only so that he would feel and understand in his mind and heart, having tasted pleasure and sufferings, and attaining the truth and the lie that there is nothing in this world and nothing controls it but the attribute of bestowal.

All the attributes that a person has felt along the way, which are opposite from the attribute of bestowal, were only the shadow of the attribute of bestowal that helped him learn, understand, and acquire it. So eventually he reaches simple mercy, which is the pure attribute of bestowal.
[84154]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/12, Shamati #113

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First and foremost, an integral family is a family where the two understand that they have to be one unified whole. They have to rise above their natural differences.

All of us are absolutely different from each other, and we don’t even realize to what degree. When our egoism bursts into flame and we exist in the state of shock, fear, or irritation or in the state of happiness and euphoria, we experience the rise of such inclinations within us that we, possibly, did not even suspect existed.

It follows that we all have to come to some integral interaction despite of all our differences. What is it? In no way do we break a person or change him. We only help him interact with others like in a puzzle where the protuberance and concavity of different parts of the picture allow one to create a connection, a single picture between them. Certainly, here a person needs to have some basics in psychology, in the work with oneself and others, and to understand them and oneself. If we give all of that to the people, they will undoubtedly become different.
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From a “Talk on Integral Upbringing” 7/8/12

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Item 53: After he purifies the animate part of his will to receive, and turns it into a will to bestow, “until He who knows all mysteries will testify that he will not turn back to folly”…

What supports a person if not the Light that breathes life into him? Without Light, the opposite form, “existence from absence” could not exist either.

Bina, which is present between all Sefirot, is the turning point, the point of transformation. At the degree of Bina a person purifies himself from the receiving desire and then once again begins using this desire, but already with the intention for the sake of bestowal. If until now, a person constantly fought the receiving desire, now he turns to it for help.

Thus, at the stage of Bina, a person acquires support from the Upper Light, which lets him turn his desire into a partner.

The degree of Bina is a transition from childhood to adulthood. Until now a person was corrected in relation to what is more important for him. He rose above egoism again and again, preferring the Creator over it. But now that he has acquired the degree of Bina, the Light firmly holds him on that degree and a person will no longer return to his folly, will not fall into the bondage of the receiving desire. This “promise” is given to him from above, being the “testimony of He who knows all mysteries.”

That is when a person receives the permission and capabilities of working with his desire in a new way – by receiving for the sake of bestowal. Previously I couldn’t even look at this “bait.” I just turned away, trying to stay as far away from it as possible, until I rose to the level of Bina. Here I receive the Creator’s support and guarantee – He testifies that nothing bad will happen to me. Then I carefully look back on Malchut, looking for a chance to turn her into bestowal, with the help of the Creator, who constantly keeps me from falling.

This transition point from altruistic bestowal to altruistic reception is very important. Here a person needs a covenant with the Creator, firmer support from Him. After all, he will have to work with egoism for the sake of bestowal…
[84458]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/12, “Introduction to the Book of Zohar”

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The world is ruled by one force of bestowal. This force is called the Creator since He created the quality opposite to Himself, the desire to enjoy, in order to raise it to His level. In this way, this desire can bring itself to perfection.

That is why all of our work consists of reaching the quality of bestowal. However, we do not disappear into that, but we change the form of our desire, the initial material, to bestowing. It continues to act with all of its fierce strength and power with which it used to think only of itself before and is revealed as an unclean egoistic system, opposite to bestowal, but now this desire corrects itself and the form of its action. Now, instead of receiving, it desires to bestow.

Such a change happens due to the Light that Reforms. However, until such a change happens inside of the desire to enjoy, it absolutely does not understand what is being talked about here since it is completely located in egoistic qualities, meaning in thoughts and desires for oneself.

The change that it undergoes is truly a new birth, similar to how something develops from a drop of seed in which there is nothing besides internal information about a future person, and in the end, it finally turns into an independent personality which thinks, understands, feels, and answers for its deeds. Where does it all come from? Is it simply out of emptiness? However, in exactly the same way, our own spiritual birth happens.

This process is incomprehensible to us and hidden from us. Until we experience serious changes, we completely do not understand how all of that is being realized on matter, how the Light works, how it changes our qualities, and what is left for us from each of the levels from which we have ascended.

Man becomes confused and does not understand where he really is. It is said that the Creator is the first, and He is also the last. So, where is the human in this? Perhaps he is at least in the middle? There is an initial state of the world of infinity, and there is a final state, the return back to Infinity, and we are on the path somewhere in the middle between the former and the latter.

In addition, what can we add from ourselves to the Creator’s actions, with whom everything begins and ends? We only can speed up our development to show that we want to move toward being similar to the Creator and to not to be pushed from behind by suffering.

The Creator has created a desire to enjoy inside of me that feels the good and the bad in relation to itself, and, now, with the help of these good and bad feelings, He can control me! However, if I am controlled only by my pleasant and unpleasant feelings, then I am acting like an animal. If I want to move forward to that same goal through my own efforts, then I need to feel its importance, to receive the strength for development, acting against my nature.

I must rise above the egoistic perception of good and bad toward the perception of truth and falsehood, and consider them as the good and the bad. These forces must pull me forward, having replaced pleasure and suffering with themselves, by which I am being pushed from behind. This is called the level of a human, not an animal.

That is only possible to achieve by the means of an environment that instills into me such values, such an importance of truth and falsehood that provide the strength for my development. However, in order for that to happen, I must listen to the environment, meaning that all of my work on the attainment of the Creator and toward reaching the goal of creation—to rise from the natural feeling of good and bad toward reason, from the animal level toward the human level, from the perception of pleasure and suffering toward the perception of truth and falsehood—all of that is work with the environment.

My goal is to find an environment that has these goals and values, and to be impressed by it. Thanks to that, I will receive the strength to develop as a human and not as an animal since an animal moves only because it sees a sack of grain in front of it or if it receives blows from behind. However, a human considers pleasure and suffering to be the approaching or distancing of the quality of bestowal, the truth and the falsehood.
[84157]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/12, Shamati #13, “The Eighteenth Prayer”

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