Question: Are the mother’s love for her children and the love between husband and wife egoistic?

Answer: This love is not considered egoistic. All our desires are divided into the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels (1,2,3,4). The desires of the animate level that arise in a person are similar to the desires of animals, only they are more developed. These include the mother’s desires in relation to her child or the desires that appear between spouses.

The mother’s instinctive attitude to her children is not egoistic. Nature forces a human being (a mother) to behave in this way to satisfy the desire of another person (child). On the other hand, the ego is the desire to enjoy at the expense of a fellow human being, that is, it’s when I want to feel good at someone else’s expense. Even the fact that someone is in a bad situation can give me pleasure.

This kind of pleasures could be divided into many levels. For example, I can get pleasure from turning the other into my slave. Also, pleasure exists in the possibility of harming him, humiliating him, and causing him suffering. Pleasures from the exploitation of others, rather than from a natural desire to enjoy, is considered egoistic.

My desire to get pleasure from tasty food, from communicating with my children, or from something in life that does not harm anybody is not considered egoism. Egoistic actions are aimed at using others for personal gain.

We reveal our true (spiritual) ego at the “human” level when we come to the group. Then, we start feeling a special hostility to each other and put a wall between ourselves.

To the extent that we want to become closer to each other, to study together, to have common meals, and unite in order to reach the property of bestowal, to that extent we feel an even greater hatred towards one another, aversion, and reluctance to connect. Our ego manifests at this particular moment. It is not present in common people; only those who want to connect to reach spirituality have it. These people find out that they cannot do anything with it. Why? It is so that they later develop a need for the upper force.

Where does this force come from? It is present initially in a perfect system and disappears (becomes concealed) after (as a result of) its breaking. This force exists but hides inside. If I try to unite with my friends and will not be able to, my level of egoism will be revealed to me more and more (to a certain extent). It will be my first spiritual degree, the first 1/125th of the total ascent.

I am working on this for months, until I reach the state which I will not be able to overcome myself. Then, I will develop the need for the Light which used to fill us and now is hidden inside, and I will want it to come, to become revealed, and to connect us together.

This requirement frees the first spiritual degree for me: I, my friend, and the upper Light between us. Afterward, my goal will be to reach the next degree, where the ego will grow even more and hatred that I didn’t know existed will break out.

I will be irritated and repelled by small things in my friend. Together, we will have to work hard and will ascend to the second of 125 degrees, and in this way until the end of correction.
[44827]
From Lesson 1, Convention in Spain, 6/3/2011

Related Material:
The Powerful And Exalted Ideal Of Bestowal
It Won’t Help Us To Play Love
Ascending The Rungs Of Bina

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Inner Work, Love, Q&A - 2 Comments →

Question: If we have to rise above our egoism, then the more we strengthen it, the more difficult it is to rise above it. Thus paradoxically, the flourishing of culture deprives us of the opportunity to overcome our ego, doesn’t it?

Answer: Yes, it is true. But why do we develop in the egoistic form and, and what’s more, exponentially so? This is for us to see inside our ego how much it ultimately destroys us, and yet we are able overcome it.

We have no other matter besides our desire! Thus, the wisdom of Kabbalah is called “the wisdom of reception” (“Kabbalah” in Hebrew means “reception”). This wisdom explains how to realize one’s desire rather than destroy it. From our egoistic matter, we are building the form of a human (Adam), “similar” (Domeh) to the upper one, the Creator.

Thus, on one hand, the ego has to grow up to the point when we become disappointed in our real egoistic form which always wants to grab for itself. Then, I will begin to use my ego in its inverse form and each time turn it into bestowal. To the extent I can do this, I will acquire forces for my soul.

Today we have reached a certain “ceiling,” “satiation,” meaning the maximum possible egoism in receiving for ourselves until we consume the last fruit of the Earth. This will lead us to the realization of our evil. Either in a good way or bad, we will understand that we must act in the opposite manner and use our egoism for bestowal.
[44667]
From the Lecture in Rome 5/20/2011

Related Material:
The Moment Of Truth
A World War Or A World Guarantee?
Humanity In Transition

Filed under: Conventions, Crisis, Egoism, Inner Work, Love, Q&A - No Comments →

A person who opens The Book of Zohar, opens it in order to reveal the Creator. By definition, the science of Kabbalah is the method of revealing the Creator to creation in this world. Otherwise why would Kabbalah and all of Torah be given to us? The Creator becomes revealed in the desire to bestow and love in a person. This desire is equal to the Creator in qualities, and the Creator becomes revealed in it according to the law of equivalence of form.

Thus, the Creator is the quality of bestowing and loving, the force of bestowal and love, “the Good who does Good.” How, then, can we achieve the desire to bestow and love, the Good who does Good? By connecting with each other in spite of every person’s egoistic forces that mutually repel one another and by building a net of good connection between us above the net of hatred. By building a net in which every person is good and does good, bestows and loves in relation to others.

But how do we do this if each of us is just a small egoist? We read The Book of Zohar, which talks about our corrected states in which we are connected by a good connection between us, and we desire for this to come true inside of us. In that case we receive an impression of those good states, which already exist in infinity. This impression, the influence of forces from our corrected states upon our current state, is called “surrounding Light” or “the Light that returns us to the source of goodness.”

Then, according to the formula, “I created the evil inclination and I gave the Torah for its correction, because the Light in it returns to the source,” we return to the source—the Good who does Good. Thus, we reveal the Creator, the Good who does Good, our root.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/11, The Zohar

Related Material:
If You Want To Be Good – Prove It!
The House For The Creator
The Path To Revealing The Creator

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Group Work, Inner Work, Kabbalah Study, Kabbalistic Sources, Love, Torah, Zohar - 1 Comment →

Question: If I need to nullify myself before the teacher’s opinion, is it correct that some friends say that they are only willing to do what the teacher, but not any other management, tells them?

Answer: A teacher shouldn’t be anyone’s personal manager. He shouldn’t be explaining to everyone what it is he wants from them. He can be almost as concealed as the Creator and not say anything at all. Whoever is willing can nullify himself on his own and reveal the teacher’s opinion.

This can be observed from the behavior of the Kabbalists of the past, the group in Kotzk or Baal HaSulam who only gave a lesson to his students once a week or even once a month. A teacher reveals his opinion ever so slightly, and the rest is the student’s work. If the student understands what to look for, how to reveal the teacher’s opinion to help aim himself toward the goal, he will be able to do it. Otherwise, he will not.

Spirituality cannot be expressed in words. How could you possibly explain how to direct your heart toward the goal?
[43952]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/11, Shamati #25

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Love, Q&A, Spiritual Teacher - 1 Comment →

Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

The Importance of the Intention during the Study

During the practice of  the Torah, every person must..set his mind and heart to reveal the Creator [the property of bestowal and love]. And any person is fit for it, as it is written: “You labored and did not find, do not believe.” …Thus, one needs nothing in this matter except the labor alone.
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 97

There is a wonderful remedy to those who engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Although they do not understand what they are learning, through the great desire to understand, they awaken upon themselves the Lights that surround their souls.
– Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 155
[43302]

Filed under: Kabbalah Study, Kabbalistic Sources, Love, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

Working in the group is extremely important. Without the group, one can’t advance. Studying theory from the authentic sources is not going to help a person in any way since he or she doesn’t change with it.

One has to put himself in a “laboratory”: work in the group, be influenced by it, time after time lower his head before it, and exalt the group in his eyes so that the friends would have an impact on him. And other times, it should be the other way around: On has to exalt himself by bestowing to the group and seeing the friends as little. This is how the work is done, mutually and in turns, depending on which of the two forces a person is employing at the moment.

My future soul is the “resistance” in the integral spiritual chain, placed between the “plus” and the “minus.” Sometimes, I work in the group by using my positive force and sometimes the negative one. Thus, there are times when I receive additional positive power from the group, and other times I get the negative one. This is how my “resistor” (R) evolves and becomes ever closer to the group, by getting engaged in it until I become its internal part.

Having entered the group, I become like a drop of semen in the womb and start growing in it. If, with all my initial egoism, I am able to cancel myself in the group as its integral part, I am regarded as an “embryo.” Immediately thereafter, my egoistic desire starts growing progressively. Thus I start going through developmental phases having renounced myself before the group.

1. The initial phase is regarded as “the nine months of conception,” which is the first stage of development. Having completed it, I get born.
2. Then, the second phase begins: My egoism grows bigger, and I cancel myself before the group ever more. But this time, I do it more proactively—I work in bestowal to others. This period of “infancy,” the small state, is called “two years of nurturing.”
3. Next, I move on to the third phase of egoistic development and reach “the age of thirteen.”
4. Beyond this point, I can gradually start employing all of my egoism in order to bestow, until I become a complete human being (Adam) at the age of 20 and on.

I undergo this entire process by using my egoism which evolves alongside my actions shown as the time line (t) in the diagram above.

Thus, practical application of the wisdom of Kabbalah entails the inclusion in the group and then into the entire world, when it takes our example and starts developing in the same way.
[43707]
From the 2nd lesson at the Rome Convention on 5/21/11

Related Material:
A Child Looking For His Spiritual Parents
The Group Is The Noah’s Ark Of Salvation
Meeting The Creator On The Bridge Of Love

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Inner Work, Love - No Comments →

All we need is to develop the desire. I remember when I used to own a clinic, one of the workers used to bring Yemenite food with her. At first I couldn’t come near it since I simply did not understand what this was. That’s how different it tasted from anything I was used to. But with time, I started becoming familiar with this food and tasting it, and little by little, I developed an appetite for it.

It’s the same as how a baby is born into the world without having any tastes yet. Afterwards, depending on the customs and predilections of his society, he begins to get used to food and to acquire a taste for it. Without taste, without the desire to eat precisely some specific dish, we would not be able to enjoy it. Of course, it’s possible to eat so you don’t starve to death, but that’s not the same as pleasure. You can receive the pleasures of this world as a bare necessity, but anything beyond that is admissible only if you desire to enjoy—and that enjoyment has to come from bestowal.

Question: Baal HaSulam writes that this requires only a psychological shift. What is that?

Answer: We do not understand how it is possible to enjoy by loving and filling someone you love. “Someone you love” is not just my child, taking care of whom gives me pleasure naturally. Rather, we are talking about someone who’s a stranger, who is alien, distant, opposite, and even hateful to me. This is like food from a foreign country that nauseates me. So I deliberately start developing the taste for it, looking for an approach to it, for closeness and understanding. Gradually the corresponding desires are born inside of me and then I suddenly feel that I love this person.

A question arises: If I love him, then won’t my bestowal to him be egoistic? After all, I will be enjoying it.

That’s true, but my love does not revoke the hatred I felt before. That hatred remains with me constantly and even increases, just like it happened with the students of Rabbi Shimon who write in The Book of Zohar that at first they hate one another, but then they reach love. We continuously advance in two lines, elevating love above hatred, as it is written, “Love will cover all sins.”

Precisely the hatred and love together create the taste, the “juice,” the might of the pleasure. They are like two reigns. If you nullify hatred, then only a tiny material relish will remain with you from the entire height of pleasure, but if you rise above the hatred, covering it with the screen of love time after time, then you end up with a huge vessel that has a huge pleasure inside.
[43755]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/11, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Love, Q&A, Spirituality - No Comments →

Question: Now that the crisis is intensifying all over the world with natural disasters and wars happening more and more often, how should we treat people who have experienced misfortunes considering that we feel their pain when we see what kind of suffering they are going through, but aren’t able to help?

Answer: The crisis is not moving in any single direction. It’s not just an earthquake and tsunami in Japan, floods and tornadoes  in America, fires in Russia, or national revolutions in the Near East. These are local events and that is why we worry only slightly when we hear about them, not taking it too close to heart. Our egoistic nature does not allow us to empathize with others any deeper. But if I’m afraid that the tsunami will reach me, then it’s an entirely different matter.

However, this crisis is multifaceted. For now it is being expressed as several separate catastrophes here and there, but in essence it is preparing ground for a fundamental worldwide jolt that will be common and global. This is exactly what people who understand what is happening are afraid of.

This will be a global economic crisis. When economic connections disintegrate in conditions of our total, universal interdependence, it will be a huge problem. This will be an immediate blow to everyone, causing people to go crazy because they won’t know what to do. Let us hope that before this happens we will be able to exert a positive influence on the world and prevent this kind of turn of events.

We shouldn’t think that in order to influence the world we have to enter the mass media or get the world’s leaders on our side. Rather, we are operating internally. We are connected with the world’s inner forces, the global, integral system that operates inside of the world. If we correspond to it and go together with it, then we act according to the laws of nature. We bring the force of unity and love into this system. It comes from us, from the part of humanity that desires a good connection between people.
From the 1st lesson at the Rome Convention on 5/21/11

Filed under: Conventions, Crisis, Economy, Egoism, Inner Work, Love, My Similarity to the Creator, Q&A, Spirituality, Suffering, Unity, World - No Comments →

Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

Only the Light in the Torah Reforms the Person

By not being able to exit the will to receive for oneself and feeling the need for the Creator’s help, a need is born to be assisted by the Creator. The Creator’s help is through the Torah because the Light in it reforms him, meaning he receives vessels of bestowal.
– Rabash, The Rungs of the Ladder, “What Is the Foundation upon which Sanctity Is Built”

Our sages said, “The Creator said, ‘I have created the evil inclination, I have created the Torah as a spice [for its correction],’” meaning that the Torah and Mitzvot spice [correct] the evil inclination, to give it flavor, for the evil inclination is called the will to receive.

When it is for oneself, it is tasteless, for the restriction is over it, and it remains in a vacant space. But through Torah and Mitzvot, one reaches the intention to bestow, and with this vessel, called the “will to receive,” one receives all the delight and pleasure.
– Rabash, The Rungs of the Ladder, “Concerning the Goal”
[42348]

Related Material:
Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 43
Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 42
Kabbalists On The Torah And Commandments, Part 41

Filed under: Kabbalistic Sources, Love - No Comments →

Writings of Baal HaSulam, Letter 19: A person is not ready for adhesion with the Creator all at once, but gradually, as it is written, “Goodness and mercy shall follow me.” That is why he creates yearnings, which are the beginning of adhesion, as it is written, “a righteous who suffers.” He suffers because the Creator does not desire adhesion with him. That is why the person feels yearning and sorrow without love, which is necessary for adhesion. He feels suffering which will turn into the delight of adhesion.

Question: How can we aspire to a connection with the Creator in states of suffering that He sends us?

Answer: The Creator does not send us suffering. Only goodness comes from Him, but in my egoism, I feel His kind attitude in the opposite way, meaning that I experience suffering. But this is exactly the “awakening” that is necessary for attaining the goal, for changing my egoism to bestowal. Then suffering turns into pleasure.

Nothing changes besides my attitude to the world, as it is written, “You will eat what is old.” You have changed yourself and your attitude to what happens. You have ascended above your will to enjoy, and therefore, instead of suffering you experience pleasure.

You used to aspire to imaginary sources of fulfillment, but now your aspiration for the Creator, your sorrow and suffering turn into fulfillment because you don’t want anything but this. You only want to desire Him, and this already fulfills you.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/1/11, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Inner Work, Love, Q&A, Spirituality, Suffering - No Comments →