Question: You’ve said that being naive helps us greatly. At the same time, the study of Kabbalah expands our minds by a million degrees. How can we connect this contradiction?

Answer: Naivety doesn’t consist of our becoming smarter and exceeding everyone else in our comprehension of the world, the universe, and the upper governance. In this regard, we are ahead of the world, but I’m not talking about this.

By “naivety,” I mean straightforwardness. I’ve put a spiritual goal before myself and nothing can deter me from this path. I move forward, and this is the most important thing to me. I call the straightness of the path naivety.
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From a Virtual Lesson 11/25/12

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Through the discovery of the upper world, we begin to understand what the Kabbalists wrote about. All the texts we study become absolutely clear. They are grasped by us as some kind an incredible novel of great feelings and great attainments, a great revelation of the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). We acquire sensations and intellect a billion times greater than what we have today. Thus, we begin to feel the upper world. Our world isn’t considered as existing at all according to the upper states.

On one hand, there is no other possibility of attaining the purpose of creation except through the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah.

On the other hand, there are no previous conditions required in order to study this wisdom. Therefore, anyone can study it, regardless of one’s previous education, character, or origin. None of these have any meaning at all, including the knowledge of the Hebrew language.

In principle, this wisdom reaches a person from such a level that he needs only to invite its actions upon himself. This means that the wisdom itself is found in the upper Light. It reaches you at a certain frequency. It works and influences you. You need to place yourself under its action and influence, and, then it will create in you the needed vacancies. It will begin to fill these vacancies with sensations and intellect.

Thus, all the corporeal characteristics that we have today don’t mean anything. You can be a clever or gifted person, in Kabbalah, it won’t help you.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah, only one thing helps, and that is naivety, when you go straight to the goal and don’t make any other calculations. That is the primary thing for me, and all the rest is secondary. If you are directed in this way, then you will attain the goal.
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From a Virtual Lesson 11/25/12

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Question: How should I make sure that the study does not become a “potion of death” for me?

Answer: We have to reach the state in which the study becomes a “potion of death.” In order to do that, I have to discover that I am immersed in my ego and that I hate everyone including the Creator. I see that I don’t want to connect with anyone and to bestow upon anyone. But I know that this is the goal of creation and I have to attain it. This means that I already discover two lines that contradict each other.

Along with my inner understanding of the necessity to reach bestowal, I discover that my nature is opposite from it. Then I discover that it is the “potion of death.” I have to find out that receiving for myself and using others are deadly for me.

I look at the friends’ faces and understand that I want to use them all: I want to be more clever than all of them, more beautiful, more strong, and more successful.

If my approach to each of them weren’t like that, I wouldn’t feel and see that anyone exists at all. I wouldn’t discern him in my sensory organs, since behind my sight there is my ego, and if I don’t intend to use a person for my benefit, I don’t see him at all. He doesn’t exist for me!

So it is a high level if I discover that I am in a state of Lo Lishma (not for Her name) and that I want to use everyone, but understand that it is the “potion of death,” which means the opposite of what it should be. After all, I want the truth, but I exist within this lie. It is a result of a great Light that comes to a man and illuminates on him showing him the real corrupt state he is in and enables him to understand it.
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From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot” 

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As a rule, only people with a high level of egoism study Kabbalah. Other than that, nothing fulfills them. Science, technologies, arts, family relationships, jobs, hobbies of any kind, lots of money…nothing brings them contentment. They are torn apart by one question: What is the meaning of life?

They don’t believe in religion since they have already exceeded this developmental stage and lost the ability to blindly follow any trends. They don’t see any value in this world since they regard everything around them as a regular “animal” existence and nothing more than that.

Naturally, they don’t have a desire to hug everybody, dance, or do any childish things like “sitting in a circle, drinking and eating together, singing songs.” They consider it weird and odd, and they are right.

Their egoism is above average. Thus, they strive to reveal the upper; however, they are forced to behave “immaturely” and childishly. Unfortunately, nothing can be done about it.

They join a group that is already in the process of advancement and has more or less revealed and understood the methodology of growth. They enter a group that feels, recognizes and acknowledges (at least studies) the necessity to bond in order to discover the properties of the upper world through the connection among friends. This is because the qualities of the upper realm can only be revealed in unity.
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From the Georgia Convention 11/6/12, Lesson 4

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Question: Recently you said that when you studied with Rabash you would hear the lesson you recorded three times a day. Do you recommend your students do the same if possible?

Answer: At least once.

Question: Also, for those who participate in the workshops, is it be worthwhile to revisit this group action and listen to the recording from the focus group if time permits?

Answer: No.

Question: “Dear Mr Laitman,

After taking several BB courses and reading your blog for more than two years, I have this question:

Why do you always say: “I do not think so…. I think this will not happen…. I think this is not the right way…. I think that the Creator will not accept this….. Among so many thoughts inside you, is there any room left for knowing?”

Answer: Everything comes from the knowledge of Nature, the Creator; this is true knowledge.

Question: Professor, I have doubts. You are a scientist, right?! You follow an empirical path. Is this particular way of disseminating the science of Kabbalah your scientific inquiry? The question itself is wider, but this is its thesis. I’ll accept an answer-thesis.

Answer: What does not match what is said in our sources?
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A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah 

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The process of correction is divided into several stages that determine the order of our advancement. If we were allowed to feel now in our vessels of receiving the pleasure that comes from the Creator, that He is good and benevolent, we will never be able to correct them so that they will be in order to bestow. They would understand what pleasure there is in the upper Light and it would be impossible to restrict and to correct them.

So during the first stage, a person must attain faith, which means to acquire the force of bestowal that is born in him by the influence of the Light if he makes efforts in working in the group, yearning for bestowal, to the extent of his understanding of this attribute. Then the force that suddenly obligates him to feel that bestowal is good is gradually stabilized in him.

It seems that he prefers bestowal for egoistic reasons too, but it’s not so. He enjoys the fact that he isn’t selfish. The Light, due to its influence gives him this inclination, such values, that force him to value bestowal. Then a person is ready to perform actions of bestowal for the sake of the actions themselves. He only asks to be able to perform such actions towards those around him.

To the extent that he acquires the force of bestowal, he begins to understand how to work with his vessels, which is called observing the 613 commandments, which means the correction of the 613 desires to which a person’s general desire is divided into. Then, of course, he uses his whole desire only in order to bestow.

To the extent that he can use his own desires in order to bestow, he begins to feel not the force of bestowal anymore, but the force of love. Thus, as a result of keeping the 612 commandments, he reaches the last commandment, the 613^th commandment, love of the Creator.

Then the permanent eternal pleasure is revealed to him by all these commandments, which was the goal of creation, by which the Creator initially intended to fill man.

It turns out that not one step along this path is possible without a person’s deficiency that precedes it. In that a person totally depends on the environment. So to the extent that it directs a person and increases his deficiency for bestowal, he raises his environment so that these deficiencies will be their common goal.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/30/12

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If a person comes to the wisdom of Kabbalah and studies it all the while for himself but not to reach the higher quality, then it closes everything to him. He understands nothing of what happens inside him if he does not tune himself to the connection with the group, if he does not seek correction, to change himself through the upper Light, and if he has no urgent need to change himself.

And at first he performs all the actions completely artificially, and only gradually under the influence of the upper Light this becomes a necessary requirement. But if he does not have the right direction and he does not want to participate in this even artificially, like a child in a game, then Kabbalah becomes poison instead of the “elixir of life.”

Why? Because he becomes even more egoistic. He wants to make money with the help of Kabbalah. He thinks he has already become great and big and he does not need anything else. Such people usually move to the side or open their own groups. But it is good. Everything will eventually become clear.
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From a Virtual Lesson 11/18/12

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 42: Indeed, you should know that the reason for our great distance from the Creator, and that we are so prone to transgress His will, is for but one reason, which became the source of all the torment and the suffering that we suffer, and for all the sins and the mistakes that we fail in… “lack of our understanding in His Providence over His creations,” that we do not understand Him properly.

If we could understand the upper Providence, we would discover the upper force and learn what it wants of us, by clarifying the relationship between ourselves and the Creator, and then: Clearly, by removing that reason, we will instantly be rid of any sorrow and pain. We will immediately be granted adhesion with Him in heart, soul, and might.

But we don’t reveal the Creator Himself as people mistakenly believe. Any attainment is only possible by the comparison of attributes, and so the attainment of the Creator refers to resemblance and equivalence to Him according to our attributes. I can only check, measure, and feel Him in relation to myself.

If I want to reveal the Creator, I have to be equal to His attributes in some way, since otherwise I wouldn’t be able to feel Him. But the moment I draw close to Him according to the equivalence of attributes, I begin to discern Him, and then from that moment on I definitely make fewer mistakes and will necessarily change faster.

Even in order to advance towards the very first revelation, to the first feeling of the Creator, I have to change, so my whole way is divided into stages, the first of which is in the “dark,” when I operate and carry out Kabbalists’ advice, believing that by that I will get closer to the Creator. I believe what the books say, and incorporate and participate in the group, taking an example from the friends, and eventually I begin to feel and to discern the upper force a bit.

A kind of inner feeling and an inclination towards the Creator is revealed in me, and then it develops even more. Then I already begin to understand what the books say and what Kabbalists mean. Until then, it may well be that I have just been reading for a decade, but only now do I begin to somehow taste every word.

This text becomes close to me, as if part of me. I understand that it speaks about what is happening inside me.

It is for such moments, such situations, that we should yearn in order not to make mistakes and to understand what the upper force wants of us.
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From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot“: The third question, which is the fear that one will turn sour, well, there is no fear at all here. This is because the deviation from the path of God that occurred before was for two reasons: Either they broke the words of our sages with things that they were forbidden to disclose, or because they perceived the words of the Kabbalah in their superficial meaning, as corporeal instructions, breaching “Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image.”

Hence, until this day there has indeed been a fortified wall around this wisdom. Many have tried to begin to study, but could not continue for lack of understanding and because of the corporeal appellations.

First, it all belongs to the past, when people were not developed enough. Therefore, as it says, “they ate unripe fruit,” which is very dangerous. An undeveloped person mustn’t be given information that is not suitable for his level.

We see that the wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed in our times, that it is seemingly widespread and many people are attracted to it, each according to his preferences. There are those who try to use it to heal different illnesses, there are those who turn it into a religion, others turn it to mysticism, new age, etc. Everyone builds his wisdom from it, unless he is a part of a Kabbalistic group under the influence of a real teacher who knows what he is talking about, and follows the method relying only on the sources that he has received from his teacher.

Unfortunately, there are many groups that study the wisdom of Kabbalah in the wrong way, or learn TES by heart as if studying Babylonian Talmud in a Yeshiva, or trying to extract some mystical powers from it. It is the natural inclination of a person who wants immediate results—to take the wisdom of Kabbalah and interpret it according to familiar terms, as any other science.

A person doesn’t understand that he has to wait until the wisdom of Kabbalah begins to change him. Then after these changes take place, he will be able to begin the course of study. It is impossible to do it any other way, except for working in a group and revealing the upper force, that “there is none else besides Him,” and that He is “good and benevolent.”

So there were, are, and will be many more mistakes with regard to studying the wisdom of Kabbalah. But they are also included in the plan of creation. If a person doesn’t correct himself, but is still attracted to correction, but simply doesn’t fulfill it correctly, then he directs all the forces that were meant to help him in the process of correction in the opposite direction. In addition, others follow him into this empty study. Then later, after a long time goes by, they are finally disillusioned and accept this wisdom, not trying to profit from it, but loyally and rigorously carrying out what the books say or what they hear from the teacher.

It is impossible to remain “free” studying this wisdom, since freedom at the moment means acting according to our ego. The wisdom of Kabbalah, however, is the concealed wisdom, it is concealed from a person and every new level revealed suddenly brings such internal changes to a person, which he cannot even imagine in advance. Therefore, one must work blindly here, and carry out all the conditions the teacher and the books speak about.
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From the 1^st part the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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