Integral Education Convention, Workshop 1: What is mutual guarantee? Why is mutual guarantee the means for attaining the Creator, for the revelation of the Creator, for ascending to Him? Why is this the only way on all the 125 levels by which our ego develops? Our ego ascends and we ascend above it by the mutual guarantee between us.

The ego keeps ascending and we ascend even higher above it by the mutual guarantee between us. This means that there is no other means, no other state that we have to attain except for mutual guarantee.

It is the mutual guarantee between us that includes all the conditions according to which we reach an equivalence of form with the Creator. Mutual guarantee leads us to equivalence of form with Him, and then He is revealed.

When we become detached from ourselves and reach the feeling of “us,” of mutual guarantee, we find ourselves in a totally different volume, on a different level, in a different dimension. There is nothing personal anymore, and the feeling of the body and this world disappear. It is as if I move to a new empty space in which there is only my concern for the group, and there I meet the desires and the aspirations of my friends.

Thus we reach true mutual guarantee: a feeling of the common dome above us, the feeling of a new space in which we discover everyone’s aspirations that are focused on the group, on unity, on what is between us. Then, if this mutual guarantee is formed correctly, a need to turn to the upper force, to be in contact with it, awakens in it. It is in the mutual guarantee that we discover the desire to rise to this force and to allow it to delight us and to be in contact with us.

This happens naturally according to the progression downward. Everything is born from the top down, and it is in the same order that the movement from the bottom up is evoked in us. The Reshimot (informational genes) that are on each and every level are gradually revealed and we suddenly feel such a big space that we have to add our aspiration for mutuality with the upper force.

So the right balance, the right relations between us, on the level of mutual guarantee when we ascend above our ego, generate the desire for the upper force in us: to delight it, to allow it to be revealed in us, to be connected to it. When we are connected, the mutual guarantee between us and this force are formed.

But it is a gradual process. We either attain a certain level of mutual guarantee or not: we may have stalled, we may have left it, perhaps one of us has fallen and we don’t feel it. On the whole, the moment we reach this state, or not, as we stall in fulfilling the mutual guarantee since something interrupts us, a new level of ego, which is lower than the one we are on, immediately rises in us.

But we have to ascend according to the descent. We fall again and rise once more. The level of the ego that is revealed makes us feel the need to tighten the mutual guarantee between us. We have probably not been sensitive enough in fulfilling it, or we may have not fulfilled it completely. Perhaps we have fulfilled it completely, which means that we have to ascend even higher.

The ascent takes place in two ways:

• By the path of suffering when the additional ego is revealed before we have actually fulfilled the mutual guarantee between us because we have stalled, have stopped fulfilling it, or for any other reason.
• By the path of I shall hasten it, when we have fulfilled the mutual guarantee between us and have to ascend to the next level according to our attainment.

But in any case, the new level of ego that is revealed in us, the new egoistic desires, the repulsion, the weakness, and the descents are all it order to spur us and to raise us to a higher level.

How do we operate in a state of descent by using the mutual guarantee between us? How does the state of mutual guarantee help us fulfill the descent correctly?

If we have signed an agreement of mutual guarantee, have risen above the ego, if we have begun to feel even for a short while that we are connected on a higher level, above our world, feeling awe and aspiring forward, and suddenly one of our friends falls, we must understand that it isn’t just he that fell, but we have received a sign that we have to start this new ascent together with him.

In other words, the friend himself isn’t the issue, but the fact is that a new egoistic desire has awoken in the mutual guarantee between us and it helps us rise even higher.

What should we do if one of us falls? We have to descend to him, to his level, speak to him in his language as if we agree with him. We have to keep the level between us and at the same time descend to him and connect to him. After all, when we connect to him, we can raise him.

Then, when we surpass the level we were on, we can continue to ascend. Thanks to our descent to the friend, we can ascend even higher than the state we were on before we descended to him. This means that we have to regard any descent of a friend as an opportunity given to us from Above to a new ascent to mutual guarantee.

When we reach such a state above us, connect to it, ascending and descending together, breathing together, we build a Masach (screen). We are like a piston that ascends and descends as we pump more and more and more desire from our egoistic attributes to our altruistic attributes.

This is how we work. When a friend falls, we ascend and descend with him. The same thing happens when the whole group goes through a similar state. This is our continuous action.

If we manage to hold on to the intention to delight the Creator by our connection, like good children in relation to their mother, a state in which we connect and work together is called a raspberry ball, and perhaps we can also call it a “float.”

We have to constantly be in this state. Constantly! To float forward, backward, no matter where we move; we have to constantly be connected; we have to fall and to rise together. What is more, we must constantly be with the Creator both in our lowest state and in our highest state.

On the whole, this is the method. Everything else are individual cases of this method. The moment we connect and find the connection with the Creator at least to some extent, the moment we ascend and descend together, is the basis for everything.

So what does it mean to float above the water? How can we be on this float no matter which ways we are moving? This float is called Noah’s Ark. It is where the spiritual ascent begins. The moment you create this, the rest will follow.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day One 2/02/14, Workshop 1

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Preparation for the Integral Convention: Two Opposites (The Law of Equivalence of Form)

The basic fundamental law of reality is the law of equivalence of form. According to the law of equivalence of form, the created being was created as something from nothing from the reality of something from something.

These two poles—something from nothing and something from something—are totally opposite from one another in our reality. However, in the Creator’s plan that is above our reality, these poles connect into one. As a result, the law of equivalence of form obliges creation to pursue this unity until it can independently reveal the thought of creation in which everything is unified.

By attaining the raspberry ball and the greatest importance of the goal, we see that we still cannot attain the concept of unity. We lack the inner forces in order to constantly focus our thoughts and our efforts on bestowal, on the Creator.

We want to cross check these two concepts of bestowal and the Creator, which mean to imagine the Creator as the attribute of bestowal. But the attribute of bestowal can be revealed only when it’s dressed in the desire to receive. In other words, we discover the Creator only in the matter that He created and not in any other way.

When it’s revealed in a person, the attribute of bestowal aligns his actions and thoughts. This means that the Creator is “clothed” in a person, in a person’s attributes, and then he acts as the one who bestows. This form is called the Creator. Only when we see ourselves and the Creator that is dressed in us, can we reveal the Creator.

We actually see ourselves all the time. When we look at the world, we also see ourselves, although in the opposite form, but it is still ourselves. Thus, according to the revelation of the attribute of bestowal, we see how it is dressed in the whole world. We discover that the attribute of bestowal dominates the world and this form is called Shechina (Divinity).

Thus we understand why we have to force ourselves to worry about the external environment. We can ascend to the revelation of the Creator and reach unity with the Creator from the raspberry ball only to the extent that we discover this attribute in the whole world.

The world becomes our vessel; all of reality is my vessel, my soul; everything that is external to me is me. But I see it on the outside in order to discover the attribute of bestowal more clearly, 620 times greater, in order to intensify and to amplify the feeling of Nefesh of Nefesh in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) above the power of the forces of impurity. This is how I begin to understand that the whole world was meant for me, for my work.

We have to recognize and understand that the forces of separation are necessary and we must understand them correctly. We have to enter a mode that we will accept the feelings of rejection as the left line against which the right line is evoked, the force of the group. We don’t see it as an obstacle, but as an opportunity to connect the right and the left lines and to create the middle line to advance even further towards depicting the Creator.
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Preparation for the Integral Convention, Nine Stages On The Path To Unity, Point 5

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Raising the Heart by the Paths of the Creator

To achieve real unity, we must attract the Light that Reforms. It’s possible to attract it only by giving respect to the greatness of the goal, the group, the friends, and the upper force that takes care of us and to which we are heading. Thus, we come to the relationship with the Divine.

Having achieved that, we act together as commandos (like all those in our world who unite in groups), and from this point we begin to aspire more to the Creator. In order to come to the Creator, we need to raise our own importance. There is no other choice, not because we want to walk arrogantly turning up our nose at everyone else, but because it’s necessary. We need forces in order to connect even more deeply, we need a stimulus that will give us energy and an urgent need in compromises and unity.

Where do we get this stimulus? The answer is “to raise the heart by the ways of the Creator.” This means that we must rise above everyone, certainly not above the group, but above the whole world, all the ages, and all the generations. We have to be proud that we are the pioneers, the last generation that paves the way for all of humanity. We have to cultivate group pride, purposeful, positive pride.

This pride should be born through force: I am not happy about it and not wholeheartedly proud, I just have no other choice but to increase pride. And it’s a lot of work.

We should look for opportunities to strengthen and maximize mutual guarantee. Where can we get the “appetite” for it? As a rule the appetite for mutual guarantee comes from a wider environment. For this we have to work precisely on the awareness of the importance of our environment relative to a wider environment.

In other words, we work with our group and raise its importance above each of us. After that, we need to raise the importance of our group above a more external environment. Only then can we connect the desires of humanity and strengthen mutual guarantee.

We cannot strengthen mutual guarantee if we close ourselves within the group. This is possible only by connecting external vessels and opening the internal ones. “The fool folds his hands together and eats his own flesh”; this is not about a person who does nothing but about a person who does not care about expanding the vessels (Kelim). That’s why he is a fool.
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Preparation for the Integral Convention, Nine Stages On The Path To Unity, Point 4

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The Raspberry Ball

The “raspberry ball” is totally, absolutely losing all individual attitude to the friends. We take off all our garments of the physical body, and inner qualities of everything that we have received from nature; only the spark remains, the Reshimo, inherent in everyone, everyone’s spiritual core, his aspiration for unity.

If I still distinguish a different attitude, differences between us, then it is not a group. The group is when all the friends are equal, when I see no difference between them. They are all Reshimot; everyone is striving to reach unity.

During the first stage of the introduction to mutual guarantee, the Creator just brings us to connection and it is a rather theoretical state. On the other hand, to form the raspberry ball, we should already actively connect with everyone. The work with the raspberry ball starts with the efforts not to see any differences between friends and ends when all of them unite into one.

If we are united as a homogeneous group as the landing party, similar to other connections that people create in this world, it is not yet “one.” Indeed, in a physical unity of this kind, everyone wants to reach a goal; everyone has his own goal, and everyone is ready to unite for the sake of his individual goal.

We do not act like that. Here, everyone has to cancel himself for the sake of unity with others, giving up individual goals.

In this self-annulment, we don’t lose our mind or feelings but gain the mind of the entire group that is called “as one man with one heart.” One collective desire is revealed in which everyone feels his individual properties. Like in the system of cogwheels, he begins to spin with everyone, without pressure, and from here he understands how they rotate and why. This means “to know what the friend has in the heart.” Everyone knows this differently, according to his properties.

Thus we come to the raspberry ball.
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Overcoming the Ego with the Help of the Environment

Having attained a certain point of mutual guarantee, I hold on to it, value it, enjoy it, and want to develop in it. But as a result of the Light that Reforms that I summon, this point begins to grow in a way that is not desirable.

The Light never operated so as to simply bring me to Ein Sof (Infinity), to correction. On the contrary, according to its plan, in its relations with the vessel, it has to show me how opposite I am from it. So to the extent that I make efforts to unite, my yearning, my work, and my efforts turn into darkness.

The moment I accept mutual guarantee as the mutual unity that has to dwell between us in spirituality, the place where we feel that we are together and not separated, the obstacles called egoism are revealed. This egoism is no longer part of this world, but is actually the real egoism that is revealed in contrast to our unity, our connection, and our mutual guarantee.

All the discernments during the descent are merely an indication of how weak we are when it comes to mutual guarantee, and nothing but that. Here the mutual guarantee of the next level is revealed: What is the connection between mutual guarantee and the Creator? What is His attitude towards this? How does He dress in it? How can our mutual guarantee depict Him to me? And so on.

There are two types of mutual guarantee that operate during the states of descent and ascent, and it is the gap between them that determines the height of the level you reach.

Thus we advance. On one hand I should feel the influence of the Light on me as much as possible, and on the other, I should clarify this feeling: “Where does it come from and why? How can I turn it to its opposite form and advance to the desired state?” Later these two discernments become the head and the body of the Partzuf: The head determines what happens to the body and how it should operate. But this is only if you control the desire.

In the meantime you constantly try to look at yourself from the side as well: What is happening to you? What is the Light doing to you? How do you change and how should you change? How should you respond to each and every state?

On one hand it occupies your whole mind and all your feelings, and you experience such states which you simply don’t know how to exit. But on the other hand, you should know that the Creator sends you these states so that you will solve the problems that are created only in the connection with Him and with the goal. The solution to the problems begins with the fact that the goal is the resemblance to and the equivalence of form with the Creator and this is more important than the problem. On the whole, everything is less important than mutual guarantee.

The key to mutual guarantee is the recognition of the importance of the goal. It is because mutual guarantee is a kind of inner feeling which we have to attain: I determine the inner state and how it depicts the new reality. It isn’t just the point of our unity; it expands and becomes the point of the new reality. It is this recognition of the importance of the goal that sustains it and develops it.

We have to constantly clarify what we need and what we don’t in order to raise the importance of the idea of mutual guarantee.

From this point, we return to the greatness of the group and its effect on us. This effect should be versatile; we should use envy, lust, honor, ambition, everything that can pressure me, push me, and shake me. This should be the way everyone operates on everyone else.
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A person goes through several phases before he reaches his first spiritual correction, the equivalence of form with the Creator. The word “place” is often used in reference to the Creator. Why is the Creator called “place”?

A place is a desire. A place that has received the attribute of bestowal is actually the Creator’s image. So, all the intentions, all of a person’s work, should be aimed at the same place: in order to correct his desires so that they should be in order to bestow. The image of the Creator that is revealed in the corrected place, which means in the corrected vessels, is already the result of the influence of the two lines.

The first phase of a person’s correction is when he stops thinking about himself and already begins to understand and to feel that the correction is fulfilled only though connection. A person already understands that he must be in a group that is considered one with regard to the Creator. Gradually, he understands the concept of connection and doesn’t see himself as a separate part from the group, as being cut off from the general. As it is written: “…for I the Lord dwell in the midst of the children of Israel.”

Thanks to his work in the group in order to attain mutual guarantee, the friends’ thoughts, and the influence of the Light that is drawn by our collective efforts, a person reaches this state when he begins to look at everything from the center of the group. Then, he feels a new hardening of the heart, and he must reach the right “place” over and over again. After a while, he understands that he has undergone a change that didn’t seem important before. The public opinion, the state of the group, becomes very dear to him.

The people in the group become important and dear to him, and he begins to worry about them more than about his own children. It is because he feels the family on the corporeal, physical level, while he feels the friends on the spiritual level. He understands that he has an obligation to his family, but he begins to fully enter the hearts of the friends, wants to live there, and to guarantee them all the best. Eventually, the state of the friends determines and dictates all his thoughts and actions, and determines what he worries about, like a mother who only worries about her baby, and everything that she does is for him. This is how a person begins to treat his group.

Gradually, the concept of the Creator is cleared in the group according to a person’s efforts to arrange and to picture the general vessel, the corrected place, the one general heart and mind, and the pain that he feels at the moment since he cannot reach such unity, and according to such efforts, the Creator’s image starts to become clear to him in this one unified group.

The Surrounding Light influences him through his yearning for the center of the group, for the desire to see that everyone is corrected and delighting the Creator who is revealed according to a person’s efforts in the group. Thus, a person gets closer to the Creator through the group.

At the moment, we don’t understand how a person can lose himself in the group and at the same time, feel that he exists, that he acts and operates. From the perspective of his ego, his self totally disappears, but, from the perspective of bestowal, it actually grows until a person rises to the level of the Creator that is revealed in the group. Baal HaSulam says, “It is natural that, when the Light of the general illuminates, the individual is nullified with regard to his own self and he doesn’t feel himself,” but he does feel the general and the Creator in it!
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/12/14

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In the idea of the intention, the principle: “Each one will help his friend” is active. For “A prisoner cannot free himself from prison,” but only the friends can get him out. The support of the friends is called, “Arvut” and if it is found, then even for a moment, I will not forget about the intention and my heart will always be open in the right direction.

I am not prepared to do this by myself but only with the friends. My heart is found in the hands of the friends, and only they can direct it towards the Creator who is found in the center of the group. Therefore, I depend on them completely. How must I compensate them in exchange for work like this? I compensate them with the same coin; that is, in an identical manner I think about them, I am concerned for their intentions. Not one of them is able to do this alone either, and he also requires the help of the friends.

If together we think and are concerned that the right intention will not cease in others, that their hearts will always remain open and ready for the discovery of the Creator in the center of the group, then with this we assure ourselves of that same concern and that same treatment from others. In the end, I will discover that everyone is already in the final corrected state and I did not see this with my corrupted eyes, as it is written: “Everyone who rejects something does so with his own flaws.” And if I direct myself correctly towards work with the friends, bestowing to them, then I will discover their bestowal towards me.

This is to say that all of the work that I do on myself I do through work on the others. In the meantime I do this for egoistic reasons (Lo Lishma), in that I am directed towards correcting myself in this way. But in spite of all this, it is already being done in the right direction: from myself outwards. From Lo Lishma like this, we come to Lishma, to bestowal.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/15/14, Workshop

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If we yearn to attain a state of Arvut, we must portray this goal somehow as a general state in which we are connected, to describe for ourselves what being “together” means. That is how we reach the concept of the “center of the group,” the unity that is produced between us and is stabilized as our common asset.

We become partners in building this commonality of “House, Kli, and vessel.” Each one must bring the most essential and valuable part of his heart, the “point in the heart,” and thus from ten “points in the heart” we build this Kli. From the “I” + “I” + “I” + “I” that are connected together, the “We” emerges. And after that, this “We” also melts and becomes “One.”

This is a psychological problem. In the meantime we don’t feel and understand how this is possible, but that is how it happens. Certainly everything is realized only through the influence of the Light, but it’s according to our efforts. And then we reach the concept of the “raspberry ball.” This is not a Kabbalistic term, but that is what we are calling it. Like children who are playing with a ball, that is how, in the meantime, we play with unity.

In this manner we reach the third section on the way, the raspberry ball, and we must clarify what this is. A raspberry ball is our unity, the connection between us, within which everyone disappears. Each one comes out of his “I” to all of us, and afterwards this “all of us” becomes one.

To forget myself and to connect together is possible in regular life also, like sports teams, criminal gangs, or pirates. This is very easy when everyone has a common egoistic goal: to rob a bank or sail in a submarine. There was an incident where a submarine began to sink and part of the crew could have escaped. But when it became known to them that the other half wouldn’t be able to get out of the submarine, they returned because they couldn’t abandon their friends, and they drowned with them. This special work they took upon themselves made it so that one could understand how it would be possible to live without the other. The connection became dearer to them than life. But this is still an egoistic approach in the framework of this world, even though this was a very special deed.

A raspberry ball is special in this because we need to understand how to connect. We are still learning how to unite. In the meantime, these are attempts and not practical actions, even though we are completely serious about working on them.

This is education. And after this, we must lay out that knowledge to our students in integral courses and explain what is happening with us and with all of humanity and what must happen if we want our continued evolution to advance in a good way, in the way of “I will hasten it.” And if not, then we must advance by the way of suffering through the same stages, but in total confusion without understanding our development and not feeling anything except evil.

Imagine the immense difference in advancing through explanations, mutual help, and the influence of the Light, or escaping from the blows; how much suffering we will pass! The difference between the way of suffering and the way of Light is immense.

Therefore, the first stage is to understand Arvut (mutual guarantee). The second stage is what is it composed from. The third stage is the raspberry ball: How from the concept of “We” we become “One.” This is possible on condition that within this oneness we begin to feel the Creator, to understand Him. The feeling that we are searching for Him together, like a team of commandos, brings us to true unity, to a perfected whole.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/14,, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention

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Our goal is to reach equivalence and harmony with the Light, in other words, to reach the completion of correction, to eternal love and bestowal. This state requires our awareness and sensation of, and elevation to all the required characteristics in order to understand what we are lacking to resemble the Light, which inner changes we must go through.

That is, all of our work is to understand what I am feeling now and what I would be feeling in the corrected state. In every state I must react like the Light.

At every moment of my life, I must yearn for balance with it, meaning, to equivalence of form. For this, first of all, it is necessary to be aware of the properties of the Light. However, in the meantime, we are in concealment and don’t feel the Light as long as we have not reached equivalence of form with it, and how can I resemble the Light if I don’t feel it?

Here, a condition saves us which was created especially for us: this world. It is a wonder that doesn’t exist in any of the other worlds. Here, in this world, even though I am in the complete shattering, completely opposite to the Light, in spite of it all, I have the possibility of discovering desires that, like me, are searching for equivalence with the Light. Like me, they receive this aspiration from Above, this drop of semen, this “point in the heart,” without which this aspiration would not be awakened.

From this point, we already can begin with actions similar to the Light. That is, when we interact with one another, we can create from ourselves an example of what is called the action of the Light: bestowal, love, mutual help, mutual cooperation, and awakening. We have the opportunity of doing those actions that the Light does with us to warm each other a bit, to agitate, meaning to arouse desire and envy in a friend.

Instead of the Light, the Creator, we get the group. The Creator brings the person to the good fortune and says, “Take it!” In other words, He brings him to a laboratory, puts him into the model through which we can advance with the help of the friends in spite of our shattered, ruined state. The Creator brings you to them, and now you begin to act!

Everything else depends upon you, upon the manner in which you do the work and relate to the group as to the Creator who bestows to you. When you begin the dialog, the reciprocal work, with the group, you will clarify how the group influences you and you influence the group. Then, it is possible to rise together.

So, we must reach a state that is called Arvut (mutual guarantee) that obligates mutual help and mutual influence by everyone for every member of the group. We present ourselves before every friend as the bestowal of the Light, of the Creator upon him, and he must react to us like a creature that wants to correct himself and resemble the Light.

In other words, each one wants to identify with the group, to be connected, to adhere to it, to become one man with one heart, with one mind. That is, I must melt into the friends absolutely so that nothing will be left of me. I want to immerse into the group. That is what each one must do, and with this, everyone is helping everyone.

As a result of this, after the last drop of effort, we truly become one man with one heart. This drop is like the last bite we eat at a meal, and, after it comes the satiety, and we feel that we have filled ourselves. In this way, we complete a full HaVaYaH, ten Sefirot. You see, only the last phase, Malchut de Malchut, feels, understands, and knows with whom it is dealing, why and how it must behave, how it is constructed, how the Creator is constructed, and what must be done in response if it gets everything from Him: both the Light and the desire.

So Arvut is the first stage—connection into a single whole—and it seems that there is nothing more to do. However, we understand that, in the meantime, these are just words, as it is said, “the end of the action, is in the initial thought.” In thoughts, we already want to reach the final outcome, but you must go by a path that can be long. You see, I must build myself, and only then will I recognize the Creator.

Everything is created from Above in a perfected form, but the creature must attain this perfection, be aware of the Creator, become like Him, understand Him to His entire depth, and resemble Him in all his actions. You see, if the state of the creature is less than complete equivalence with the Creator, it is not considered that the Creator has been beneficial to him.

We must pass through all of these stages, and as long as we have not finished the previous stage, we cannot pass to the next stage. Therefore, from the beginning, we are talking about Arvut, about attaining equivalence of form with the Creator, about harmony with nature: coupling, embracing, kissing, all expressions of equivalence of form with the Creator, and in spite of it all, these are all still words, and now we begin to construct this state; that is, we enter into the second stage and beyond. Overall, it is possible to discover the nine stages on the way to spiritual discovery.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/14, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

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A person’s work with the group is meant to sustain the connection with the friends even if he draws away from them physically, when he goes to work or when he goes home. I should not break away from them even when I am in difficult states, not only in fatigue or indifference, but even when I feel hate and repulsion.

The Upper Light plays with me while I have to divide myself into two parts. The first part is all I feel since all these feelings come from the Light into my desire. The second half determines what I should do, it controls me.

It is as if I have two roles. The first role is to feel the states that the Light brings me as deeply as I can. The second role is to control my feeling and to understand where it comes from, what causes it and how I should change it in order to advance to the desired state.

I have to be an expert inspector, examining, clarifying, and checking myself to direct myself to the goal. Later these two discernments merge and thus become the body (Guf) and the head (Rosh) of the spiritual Partzuf. The head determines what happens in the body and how it should function but only if this part, my expert, has control over the other part, over the desire.

In the meantime I try to exist in these two roles and to constantly see myself from the side, thus clarifying what the Light does with me, how I change, how I should change, and how I should react to each and every state.

I constantly assess myself from this control system. I change by becoming more independent of my feeling, of the discernments in my desire. I try to do my best not to identify with the desire and to rise above it. This means that my “head” is above the “body.”

This is the function of the second phase along the way of our spiritual advancement. I expect to reach a state in which I feel that all the desires and inclinations that are created in me by the Light are good, although I don’t feel them that way and don’t see that they are valuable since everything is broken. But they are good and beneficial to my advancement and are essential along the way: I have to gradually correct them one by one, to collect them to the one goal, to adhesion to the Creator, since these are parts of my soul.

So I examine myself like an assessor who sees all the corruptions in me and am glad about it since only by correcting them can I advance. If I discover greater corruptions, it’s a sign that I am advancing well since I have revealed such great deficiencies I should do something about . This means that on the one hand, this problem can occupy all my thoughts and all my heart. I find myself in a terrible situation and don’t know what to do about it. The problems are so great that my head explodes because of the horrible tension.

But on the other hand, I should know that this whole state was sent to me by the Creator so that I will solve all these problems only in the connection with Him and with the goal. The solution to the problem begins when the goal becomes more important than the problem.

If this is how I see these two approaches, then I don’t care about what happens to me: My goal is to be corrected and to resemble the Creator in bestowal, love, and adhesion which are more important to me than my personal state. Thus I solve every state. If I place myself above the state, it usually doesn’t need a solution anymore. I see that I don’t need anything else, “everything is resolved in the thought.” With regard to our state, it means that every state is less important than our mutual guarantee, since mutual guarantee is the goal that we have to reach in the connection between us.
[124929]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/14, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

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