Question: At the convention, you said that our problem is that we cannot tie all our intentions together yet: me, who has to be corrected, the friends, the Creator, and the world. What are the stops on the way to the one unified intention that combines all the elements?

Answer: We have to constantly clarify things internally as to what we have to think about and thus summon the Light that Reforms. It is written: “It is better to sit and do nothing,” since if you don’t know what to do, you can even cause more harm. It is like giving a small child power, or a person who doesn’t know what he is doing; he can only cause harm.

So, on one hand, it is concealed from us so that we don’t harm ourselves and others. On the other hand, how can we come close to the right action? It turns out that we constantly need to think about the right intention and only to that extent will we be able to come closer to the Light. There are Masachim (screens) that conceal the Light from us only because our desires are incorrect. The moment our desire comes close to the right state, these Masachim disappear.

So every person must constantly check himself, and decide how he should really invest his powers. Life helps us, the general despair, the aimlessness, the confusion, and the state the world is in now all help us. It isn’t that we are not being ridiculed anymore, as they used to do about a decade or two ago, and in every generation in the past ages, we have reached a point now where there is no choice. So we have to show not only to ourselves, but to the world, what we should all yearn for, what we should reach, what intent while reading The Zohar.
[82382]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/12, The Zohar

Related Material:
Economics Has Ceased To Be A Science
To Not Regret The Lost Time…
The Moments Of Light

Filed under: Conventions, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Zohar - 1 Comment →

Each of us contains 613 different desires, relating to our connection with one another, which we have to correct. First of all, I have to see that they are all egoistic and that I want to use the neighbor and the Creator.

This direction, “Israel, Torah, and the Creator,” meaning from love for the creatures to love for the Creator, first works in the opposite form: for the sake of using the Creator and the creatures for one’s own benefit. First we have to discern precisely this fact, and it becomes revealed on the condition that both the creatures and the Creator are used correctly.

At the first stage, wishing to achieve the general connection with the entire universe, through the creatures to the Creator, we discover our transgressions and mistakes, and that is how we reveal the evil inclination. This does not happen all at once. As one advances, a small part of egoism is continually revealed. We demand its correction, and in the Light of correction we reveal a greater part of egoism, and then again ask for it to be corrected.

Light comes from the Creator through the group, illuminating and correcting the evil that we discover, and as a result we discover new, stronger, harsher waves of egoism within us. That is how we advance from small mistakes to more serious ones, and then from small transgressions to bigger ones, gradually revealing and correcting ourselves.

But we always aspire to love, unification, the unity of Israel, Torah, and the Creator into one whole. We wish for the Creator to become holy, “separate,” special, meaning for the quality of bestowal to always be the greatest value for us. That is how progress occurs.

And the most important aspect of this work is to understand that all corrections are concentrated outside of a person. His spiritual advancement occurs outside of him. And outside of him there is only the Shechina and the Creator that fills it.

A person imagines that there is an entire world around him: still, vegetative, animate, and human, but all of that is just his illusion, his imagination. In reality, none of this exists. When a person begins to reveal the true reality, he discovers that all of it is devoid of the spirit of life, and it is enlivened only by the upper force of the Creator, who is standing behind all of these images and shadows. By themselves they are just garments, wrappers, not having inner fulfillment.

Let us hope that we will reveal this truth quickly and will begin truly working with the Creator through these garments.
[82496]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/12, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
When The Light Is Present But Doesn’t Correct
Loving Unconditionally
Love Will Cover All Sins

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Group Work, Inner Work, Perception, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

We can speak about many reasons for creation: the Creator’s desire to bring pleasure to the created beings, thanks to which He created us, and His desire to be revealed and to show His greatness. But considering all the reasons for the goal of creation, one thing is clear, that a person has to reach the feeling and the mind of the attribute of receiving and the attribute of bestowal, so that he’ll understand and feel the Creator to the fullest and become like Him according to the condition of equivalence of form—to rise up to the same height and status.

But how is it possible to reach this if a person doesn’t feel a need for it? If he were given such a need by nature, it wouldn’t be his own need. So the Creator has to create a system in which a person will be able to acquire the desire to reveal the Creator and to resemble Him by using his own powers. Then the desire will be on the person’s account.

This desire is what we call “human.” After all, everything he had up until the moment he reached wanting to resemble the Creator was not considered the “human” level, but only the “animal” level, the initial natural level. Therefore it says, “They are all like animals,” meaning until the moment they acquire a desire to resemble the Creator, a desire to bestow.

In order to do that, the desire that the Creator created was shattered. And within the shattered state a person discovers different forms, deficiencies, and corrupt desires. In the meantime, all this is part of instinctive nature and there is no independent action that a person performs.

A person starts to advance by being awakened from Above, being brought to a group, and being given the opportunity to develop through ascents and descents. Thanks to the environment, a new desire begins to grow in him when he clarifies whether he wants to be part of the environment or not, and if he wants that, then for what purpose: in order to benefit from it or to bestow upon the friends? Thus a person can clarify his desires.

He rises and descends alternately, and thereby the conditions for molding his new desire to receive are created for him. If he’s ready to be in the lowest state only in order to have a chance to bestow, then he will undoubtedly gain nothing for his own benefit. On the contrary, he’ll be happy that he’s in such a low state, since by that, he can be sure that he’s not using it egoistically, since there is nothing to enjoy.

A person is ready to feel that his desire to receive pleasure will always remain empty only in order to acquire the desire to bestow, the opportunity to perform some altruistic action. From now on, he begins to acquire a vessel, a new desire, and can thereby advance.

This means that he develops a new desire that will be his own desire without being attracted to greatness but by agreeing to remain on the same level, in a state of smallness in Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE), in desires to bestow. It’s in this desire that he discovers the force of bestowal and begins to know the Creator.
[82282]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/5/12, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
I Choose You, Brothers!
The Program Of Creation
Lift Your Head To See The Friends

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →

The Writings of Rabash, Volume 3, “The Matter of Afflictions”: So, when a person studies the Torah and doesn’t find life in the Torah, he feels sorrow, and this is called “a life of suffering.” This means that he feels sorrow since he cannot find the Light of the Creator’s face. In any case, he doesn’t stop studying the Torah, as it is written, “by your labor in the Torah,” although you don’t find it. So, according to how much he studies the Torah and intends to find it, the afflictions soften to a certain extent called, “You have labored and found,” which is the matter of the Light of the King’s face in the Torah. So, through the afflictions, a true desire if formed in him to receive the Light of the King’s face, and this is called “pangs of love” in which there is no annulment of the Torah.

And the most important thing is that the afflictions will be pangs of love and will not annul the Torah, the Light, which means that, when a person feels that he is evil, he understands that the evil is in his ego, and if he worked above the ego, it wouldn’t happen. There are usually physical afflictions in all the religions and beliefs while according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, a person draws away from the body through afflictions that help him do that as he rises above them.
[82275]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/1/12

Related Material:
Turning Fear Into Advancement
As We Ascend, The Fear Will Defuse
Primordial Fear

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Inner Work - No Comments →

Our major work is persistence. Do not neglect any moment or the smallest opportunity in which the principle of “I have labored and I found” is based.

A person usually begins to weigh things and to make egoistic calculations, just like in everyday life: Is it worth it to get up and go to work now? And he decides that for 200 dollars he is ready to get up, but for 50 dollars there is no point in getting up and making an effort.

Perhaps from the ego’s perspective this is a right calculation, but if we speak about working in order to bestow, then we have to take into account that our profit is in how much we give, in how much we advance towards the Creator! And here, even one penny can be worth not a penny but billions of dollars. It all depends on how great the one we bestow to is.

So the account should be an account of bestowal and not an account of receiving. In the account of bestowal, the more insignificant and unimportant the work may seem, the more rewarding it can be. This is because our exertion and overcoming the disrespect makes this minor work many times more important.

What seems as minor and unimportant in my egoistic perspective becomes a great opportunity that I receive in return for a little effort, but this is if I switch it all to bestowal. After all everything will be cleared in the thought. I have to make a little effort in order to overcome my doubts; should I deal with something that seems unimportant? But if I do it and start working on what seems to my corporeal eyes as unimportant, I already perform a spiritual action.

So although on the egoistic level it seems that I did something small and unimportant, on the spiritual level it has great value. If I start thinking about to whom I bestow, I will be able to value my profit. The main thing is the Creator’s greatness. My yearning is not to attain Him, but rather His greatness. This reveals Him and allows me to attain revelation.

The difference between the concealment of the Creator and His revelation is determined by one thing only: Do we disrespect Him or do we try to feel His greatness. This is the only thing that changes our vessel and brings us to revelation.
[82139]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
The Kind Of Persistence Needed On The Path
Your Efforts Do Not Vanish Into Thin Air
The Simple Law Of Mutual Guarantee

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Item 18: And we must not ponder the state of other beings in the world but man, since man is the center of Creation, as will be written below (item 39). And all other creatures do not have any value of their own but to the extent that they help man achieve his perfection. Hence, they rise and fall with him without any consideration of themselves.

Just as we study in the four phases of the Direct Light, the first three phases of the Direct Light also stabilize and support the fourth phase. They correspond to the inanimate level of nature, the vegetative and the animate, while the fourth level is the level of the speaking. On the level of the speaking, there is a feeling of restriction, of the Returning Light and of equivalence of form with the Creator, through the first three phases that precede it. This is the reason why the inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature rise and descend together with the human level. When it attains perfection they will also be included in that state, of course.

Then, as it says: “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat.” The bestowal among humans will also reside in all of reality.

Today we want to correct the environment, to decrease pollution, and in the meantime storms, floods, volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters are expected in the near future. This will remind us of what happened on earth billions of years ago. We must understand that we cannot correct anything in the inanimate, vegetative, and animate nature directly.

Only by the correction of the human level can we balance the other parts of nature. They rise and descend together with man. No matter how much we try to improve the world, it will only smile at us when we correct ourselves.
[82058]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

Related Material:
The Reverse Side of War
A Tsunami In The Deepest Reaches Of Your Soul
Everything Is Determined By The Human Degree

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work - No Comments →

Question: You always guide us during the conventions, leading us from one lesson to the next.

Answer: I cannot say anything about that in advance. I don’t know how things will work out before I see you in the convention. You will summon my attitude towards you according to the state you will be in.

In bestowal everything depends on the one who receives and nothing is predictable. I am a power supplier—you will receive bestowal according to your connection to me.

So the matter is not in the subject of the lectures and the workshops, but in the preparation. Your intensive collective preparation will generate from me everything that you need in the right order. I listen to the friends, feel the general atmosphere among all those who connect to us, and this determines how the workshops will be managed.

Question: How can we raise the level of our question in order to add feeling to it? Before every convention there are the same questions to which we’ve already received the answers.

Answer: The questions may repeat, but we have to feel a new depth in them. The phrasing of the questions isn’t important, what is important is the depth. If a person is only superficially interested in how he should connect, it isn’t a question at all.

We have to be more serious since we are in a process of clarification, which means that we are constantly summarizing what we pick up along the way. So on the basis of all the clarifications and the conclusions, we reach new questions. Even though the questions may sound familiar, they are much deeper.

There isn’t much depth in your questions, there is no burning necessity for a new study of the unknown layers: “What should we do today in order to reach the unity that we have not reached yet? What do we lack? What should we add?” I must hear the echo of this search in your questions.

Question: How can we constantly soften our heart until the congress itself?

Answer: The key is the influence of the environment. It is this factor that influences the workshops. At first I don’t want to hear others, I look down upon them. I am not interested in what they say, who are they? Their words only irritate me.

But after a few minutes a new thought comes to me. Where do they come from? After all, they don’t appear out of the blue, this is how the Light operated, and there is nothing but the Light. Occasionally we manage to sink faster inwards and to feel ready for he influence of the Light. This is the whole essence of the workshop.

The “workshop” is our intensive, collective, integral group effort. This effort that is aimed at unity resembles the Light in its attributes and summons its influence upon us.

Of course it will eventually take us less time to reach unity in the workshops. Although it is impossible to explain, the desire already understands which internal movements are required in order to feel the excitement and the impression from the unity. Thus the workshop is our “tool,” our means.

But we can also do the same thing during the morning lesson. We need to do it every day for three hours!

Question: During the workshop we “rub” against one another and there is a kind of spark going through us. How can we reach the same feeling during the lesson?

Answer: During the lesson you don’t speak and don’t look at one another, which makes things more difficult for you. But you should overcome this. You should learn to feel one another without words and even independently of distance. The distances don’t exist, there are no walls, I only imagine all this; it is all depicted in my perception. So let’s make an effort and each one will feel the friends as his integral parts.

Don’t pin your hopes on me. I only operate the mechanism. It all depends on the connection among you. The upper Light is always ready and responds according to your desire. So there is no effort on my part: The moment there is a desire, I am ready to work on it. You are expecting something from me, and you need only one thing—to actually want connection. Thus, you will oblige me, you actually force me to act. Only your connection summons a real filling on my part.
[82051]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/2/12, “Questions About the Congress of Consolidation in the North of Israel”

Related Material:
An Adventure For Adults
Getting Ready For The Congress: First Round Of Questions
Getting Ready For The Congress: Second Round Of Questions

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

I cannot tune myself to the Creator without first properly calibrating myself with the help of my friends. I do not have any other tool for checking myself: not its foundation, no boundaries, nor qualities of reference.

I first must reach the correct setting, like the white balance in the camera or the initial calibration of any instrument. I need to connect to a certain system report.

It is the same in relation to the Creator because I do not have any points of reference when it comes to Him. Every religion and belief gives Him its own definition; there are plenty of opinions, everyone imagines whatever they like.

And this is why the breaking of the desires gives us the opportunity for verification, so we will not get confused. I am able to perfectly tune myself with a tuning fork in relation to a group of friends. I need at least one more person (two is the minimum number) who I could use to determine the correct direction and the starting point for advancement, by combining “Israel, Torah, and the Creator.”

But I must start working by turning myself into a properly calibrated instrument, as precisely as possible. The entire ladder of spiritual degrees where I am constantly working on greater adhesion, unity of all souls, all the people, represents a better quality and finer calibration to something called the Creator until I focus on a single point, which points in the absolutely precise direction.

All my qualities, all my desires, connect in this point, giving a pure sound, like of David’s violin. This means that I am attaining real adhesion, revealing this phenomenon called the Creator in all my qualities.
[82132]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/3/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
The Tuning Fork That Is Always With You
Catching The Right Wave
Detector For Revealing The Creator

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →

Man forgets that he is always standing before the Light, the Creator, the good Who does good without any limitations. And all the limitations, obstacles, interferences, distance, and concealment exist in man himself. All he needs to do is remove this cover, destroy the obstacle, and it will disappear. All the disturbances that exist within man are the consequence of laziness and pride that are being placed as an obstacle before him by his ruined egoistic desire. We need to understand that if the upper Light fills everything, then all the disturbances only come from us.

If a person really comes to desire ridding himself of disturbances through the environment (meaning the teacher, books, friends, the group, and all the work that comes with it), this means that he really cancels it. This is because his efforts turn into a screen and the Reflected Light. The disturbance was caused by the absence of the screen and Reflected Light, and appeared in man as the result of the breaking. Each of our states come from the breaking because there is nothing in us other than a broken egoistic desire that paints a warped picture of different images and forms, sensations, opinions, thoughts, and desires for us in our ruined qualities; we call all these things “this world.”

Bu the moment that we wish to overcome this breaking, we understand that we’re experiencing all this within our ruined desire, which needs to be turned inside out. We don’t need anything other than this desire to turn everything the other way around. It’s a demand called prayer, an appeal, a cry, regarding which is written: “My children have defeated me,” because they have forced the Creator to change this deformed sensation and vision for the true one.

And as soon as we incline towards correction, we incline our entire world towards justification, and it inverts. We think that the Creator does it, but we actually do it with our own hands. The Light is always at absolute rest and is always ready to help us do something. Everything depends on whether we will be able to evoke it and obligate it to do this.

This is why we need to say: “No one will help me but me!” Because everything is in the person’s hands: the spiritual spark, the corrected desire, and the environment that needs to be organized so it represents a system of proper values, a scale of priorities. And with all this, a person will be able to advance and demand correction from the Light, the source, which will become revealed the moment the person really desires it.

On one hand, it’s written that the Creator does everything. But on the other hand, it’s written that everything depends upon the person. And in reality, everything is done by the upper Light, the upper force, but only at the person’s request. Even when we suffer today and seem to want to rid ourselves of suffering, in reality, we don’t want to be free of it. If we really wanted that, we would have ended all the suffering a long time ago.

In other words, the Light, the Creator, does all the actions, but man makes the decision regarding these actions. It’s written, “He labored and found,” it doesn’t happen any other way. This is why it’s necessary to understand that all the tools are known and the place of analysis is clear. It’s also necessary to analyze one’s intention, the direction of one’s thought, and the goal. And when a person makes the right analyses, uses his environment and all the tools given to him the right way, then the upper Light is ready to do this action the moment this desire appears in man.
[81750]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/27/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam, Igrot, “Letter 34”

Related Material:
A Flat Tire Or A Flat Desire?
Unnecessary Sufferings
How Can We Fight Heaviness?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

Question: In what way is the congress in the North different from the one we had in the Arava desert?

Answer: We already spoke about it yesterday in the workshop when we spoke about how our feelings change as a result of the workshops and our attitude towards them. We saw that each time the beginning is more difficult—it is harder to come to the workshop—but the entrance and the connection come more quickly and our impression grows and becomes clearer and more stable.

It is the same when it comes to congresses, since a congress is a kind of a workshop, but more complex since it is made of more parts, and we have to relate to it accordingly.

Of course, it is harder to get ready for the coming congress and to the impression we should receive from it compared to the Arava convention, in which we felt as if we were leaving Egypt and coming closer to Mt. Sinai. There was something of the legend there, a kind of an adventure. Today we are facing routine work: We are coming to a new place, we fix what is necessary, we have lectures…the previous impression is missing, it has been changed to a “standard procedure,” into routine.

This is good since this is how nature provides us with a more mature attitude so that we will try to penetrate our feelings and to be impressed by more profound things.

We say that in the Arava we attained the level of Shoresh (the root level) of our vessel. The fire burned in us and we felt like heroes looking forward to an adventure. Now we’ve moved on level one or two, the desire is also “thicker,” and our attitude should be more serious. There is no room here for the “airy” euphoria, to the childish impression anymore; we should search for all this inside, in the depths of our feeling and understanding. That’s what’s important.

Today we must attain the connection under difficult conditions, without the first impression, with a desire that is thicker. We have to be thankful for having received a thicker desire. Apparently we’ve managed to do something in the past and now we should attain a much stronger impression than before that isn’t childish but much more mature.
[81971]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/02/12, “Questions About the Congress of Consolidation in North Israel”

Related Material:
Did You Order A Movie Of Your Life?
Convention As A Pressing Necessity
The Lack Of Joy

Filed under: Conventions, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →