Question: Why is a collective reading of The Book of Zohar preferable? Is this related to the laws of psychology?

Answer: No. The upper world is built upon bestowal and love, upon the connection and integration of characteristics.

Kabbalists wrote extensively about these conditions. If relationships exist between friends in which they complement each other, connect, and so forth, then The Book of Zohar begins to illuminate them and fill them. Otherwise, it has no influence on the person.
[211054]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 2/12/17

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Question: I like to study alone, but I’ve heard that one needs to study Kabbalah together in a group. What is the benefit of studying together?

Answer: We know that working together is very beneficial for achieving a significant result. It is no wonder that big firms employ many scientists and engineers to work on large-scale projects and major constructions. One person is not able to solve large, global problems. Kabbalah sets a major task for itself.

That is why after beginning to study Kabbalah a person gradually realizes the need to study in a group. After all, everyone, based on the special root of his soul, represents a specific quality.

Gradually students begin to connect their parts, their souls, until they assemble them into one beautiful mosaic. It is like a Lego or a puzzle that they put together and then they see the whole picture. And the whole picture appears only due to the connection between the students.
[211385]
From the conversation “Answers to the questions of beginners” 7/24/17

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Question: The recognition of evil in me is the recognition of my egoism. The recognition of something can happen only by our recognition of the differences; how black I can perceive black depends on if there is at least a bit of white in the background.

We can begin to be aware of, to know, and to perceive the Creator, that is, the attribute of bestowal, only if we recognize and are aware of the evil in us. Otherwise we will not be able to perceive and to recognize the attribute of bestowal.

But how can we recognize and perceive the evil in us (our egoism) if all that is in us, all that we perceive in this world, is egoism and nothing else? Please explain, how do you suggest that we recognize our egoism?

If we can recognize and perceive the evil in us, we will be able to justify the Creator with our heart. Otherwise it doesn’t happen and there is only an imaginary movement forward.

Answer: This is actually why we need the upper Light (the Surrounding Light)!
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Question: In a post “My Thoughts on Twitter, 7/31/17,” you wrote: “To #love truly means not to provide the beloved with all their needs, but connect them to the ‘channel of abundance’.” Please explain: what is this channel of abundance and how can one connect to it?

Answer: The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that it is possible to attain spirituality only through everyone because we are a single system of interconnected souls in which each one can be fulfilled only through what others transmit to him.

Question: Why is it that with every new ascent, there is a renewed interest in analyzing my previous states?

Answer: That is because the future is specifically built on them.
[211375]

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Question: Does a Kabbalist not think about the future at all? Only about the present?

Answer: Everything depends on the measure of his equivalence to the Creator. If I completely merge with Him, then for me the concept of time as some factor disappears, as does everything in existence. I do not change, but simply remain all the time in adhesion with the Creator.

Question: An ordinary person is constantly thinking about what will happen the next minute, in a day, a year, and so on, and makes all kinds of plans. Does a Kabbalist not think about this at all?

Answer: An ordinary person needs to receive “treatment,” and then he will understand that the coordinates of time, space, and motion are strictly subjective and require recognition of their subjectivity, and then correction.

Question: We observe that certain processes in our lives are nevertheless connected to time: for example, if a child is one year old, until four more years have passed, he will not turn five.

Answer: Naturally, there is time that flows in our coordinates independently of us. This, however, is only as long as you exist in your animal body and within those dimensions that contain an order of change: yesterday, today, tomorrow, and so on.

Therefore, it is impossible to return to the past, the future can be approached, and so on, but only because we still exist in the framework of this world. The moment we rise above this world, we begin to relate to time, motion, and space in a completely different way.
[211092]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/19/17

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Question: If a person’s entire destiny is predetermined, then in what manner is this script realized? Who is the director who actualizes it?

Answer: This program is actualized through the power of a single force called “nature” or the “Creator,” the upper force.

It’s a positive, benevolent force, within which, as if within a force field, there exists a desire. The desire is called the created being because it did not exist prior to being created by this positive force, the Creator.

The Creator, as a benevolent force, develops the desire, placing it under the “steamroller of evolution” and obligates it to progress. The force of evolution is pushing us from behind with pain and suffering or pulling us forward with pleasure. After all, the material of the created being is a desire to receive pleasure, to receive fulfillment.

Because of this, the desire continuously develops toward greater and greater complexity of form. In other words, within this desire, which up until now felt only pleasure or pain in response to life experiences, another component is added—the brain, the memory—due to the traumatic experiences of life.

The entire path of the developmental experience formulates within the created being an internal program: memory of past states and conditions, which lead to positive or negative sensations within the desire to receive. All past situations are recorded within the desire as memory about pleasure and pain and also accumulate within the brain as past experiences.

Ultimately, this desire is able to make predictions, build some future plans, plan in advance what to choose and what to avoid. All this is based on prior experience.

A person can also learn from the experience of the environment: inanimate, vegetative, animals, and other people. That’s how he advances. But, regardless of the complexity of this program, within it there are no accidental elements that cannot be predicted in advance. If we knew all of nature, all the forces working within it, then we would be able to know ahead of time, to measure exactly, to understand and observe that events will unfold in this particular manner and in no other possible way.

It’s as if we built a machine or computer system and knew exactly how it must operate in its correct functioning state. A person is also exactly like that, so is a group of people and all of humanity—there is nothing unexpected within it. The problem is only in our ignorance; it doesn’t mean that there are some unknown glitches in the system. If they are unknown, it’s only us.
[211903]
From KabTV’s “A New Life,” Episode #888, 7/25/17

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Question: What material is the upper Light made of?

Answer: There is no material in the upper Light. We perceive the Light only as the origin of the pleasure that fills us, and we define it from the feeling that is created in us. It is like, for example, the electricity that we perceive as a result of its manifestation in materials.
[210834]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/19/17

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In the spiritual world there is no time, space, or motion. Definitions and states characteristic of our world are irrelevant.

The spiritual world consists of only two components: Light and matter (desire). We cannot say anything about the Light; it is in a state of absolute rest because it does not change and it has no desire except to fill the created being, which receives as much as necessary. And therefore we have nothing to say about the Light; it is ready for anything, open to creation.

There is nothing in the Light except for the desire to permanently bestow upon the created being.

The Light is ready for this and the created being must reach an equivalence of form with the Light in order to get closer and to receive it. The created being undergoes different states because great changes take place in the desire and in the intentions, which are its essence.

In the first state, the created being wants to receive everything from the Light. Then he discovers that he cannot continue like that and decides to bestow to the Light because he feels distant and opposite from it when he only receives, which makes him feel shame.

But what can he bestow in order to resemble the Light? Nothing. Therefore, he restricts himself, which is called the first restriction.

Now the created being can use the fact that the Light wants to fill him to the extent that he can think about his bestowal unto the Light. To the extent that the created being bestows unto the Light (P1), the Light fills him, and although the Light is first, it becomes dependent on the created being (P2).

In the state P1, it is the intention of the created being that actually determines everything.

To the degree that the created being can resemble the Light with the intention to bestow unto the Light, the Light can fill him and a special form of closeness called adhesion is built between them.

This is the state that should be reached. It is everything. The created being should totally transform itself into the intention that the Creator will fill it with Light only in order to bring Him pleasure. It looks up to the Creator and gives itself to Him loyally: He wants to fill me and I want to be filled by Him, and I only take into account what brings the Creator pleasure: that He fulfills me.
[210587]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/19/17

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Question: If people, having acquired the quality of bestowal, do not even know that their desire is full, then what changes in the spiritual system?

Answer: What is different is that all the people fulfill the system because all of us are interconnected and become parts of one closed system. There are all seven billion people in the system and all of us must be interconnected like cells in one body, fully providing for each other.

Nothing can be otherwise except for full support and mutual integration with each other.
[211264]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/2/17

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Question: How does the creature, which is 100% desire, restrict itself? What is the spiritual action called Tzimtzum (Restriction)?

Answer: The creature was created by the Light. The Light that operates within the creature makes it possible for the creature to overcome and control its desire and even perform actions against its desire. Under the influence of the Light, the characteristic to oppose itself is discovered within the desire.

Malchut, which receives the upper Light, feels its influence, its love, and feels shame from the lack of compatibility with the Light, the Creator. As a result of feeling shame, it invites a reaction in its desire that compels it to stop receiving the Light. The desire remains, only the act of reception is restricted.

Question: Is it possible to make a restriction on the desire to receive without feeling shame?

Answer: No, without feeling shame, there will be no drive for the creature to perform an action that is contrary to its nature.
[211083]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/19/17

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