We have to examine which conditions and rules and which types of connection should be among us, so that we will generally feel the mutual connection as a spiritual system. In this system everyone nullifies himself and connects with others by incorporating in their desires and impressions, their thoughts and goals, as if they were his own.

Everyone changes and nullifies his desire; it becomes formless. “Personally, I don’t need anything. I want to receive your desires and to fulfill them for you.” This means that I am “dressed” in the form of bestowal like in a new outfit. My desire becomes raw material, a shapeless mass. It has power and potential, but now you are guiding me to where you want, to what is good for you.
This is a “servant of God;” a person that dedicates himself to the service of bestowal. This allows us to be mutually connected with one another in the spiritual network where everyone fulfills only the desire of others.

Then I discover that these are not strange desires at all. Thus I begin to exit myself, and I immediately feel that there is only one general collective mutual desire.

It turns out that the system is harmonious, and this special desire is not typical of the “leg” or the “arm,” or any part that I imagined, but of the whole. I discover that the system has a mind, an internal part. I discover it and receive instructions from it through the whole system and connect to it in a reverse connection.

This is the connection with the Creator, but it comes after I feel the general “body,” the general harmony of the mutual bestowal.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/5/12, Writings of Rabash

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Not everyone can go through the first stages of preparation for the spiritual path and hold on to it. Many leave the group, the spiritual path, and the process of changing oneself. They go back to the external world and return to the life of the landlords by stopping the development of the point in the heart, which makes them the guests of the Creator—the Host of the Universe.

As we know “the opinion of the Torah is opposite from the opinion of the landlords.” If a person holds the opinion of the Torah, he feels that he is a guest and the Creator is the host. Therefore he wants to change himself in order to resemble the host.

This is called having the opinion of the Torah, placing the goal before him in order to be in bestowal and accordingly determine his states.

The first states, the ascents and descents we go through, are disconnected from our ordinary mind and feelings. A person sees that he changes completely. For the first time he begins to feel that some foreign dominion manages him. This uniqueness is typical of the changes that we feel in the process of our inner spiritual development.

Suddenly a person feels that he is under the control of some strange force. Before, he never had this feeling in his ordinary life. He always saw clearly whoever wanted to dominate him, which means that they were external forces. Here, however, for the first time he feels that some force descends and takes him over, ties him from the inside and controls him.

It is a very special feeling. I remember the wonder I felt when I first felt this. It is a very unpleasant and incomprehensible feeling until a person begins to get used to it and to acknowledge this action as the Creator’s work on him. Then he is already prepared to determine that this is so and to agree to it. Then he begins to evoke this feeling by himself and to expect it as you expect a meeting and a connection with someone you love.

He begins to value the Creator’s work on him and to expect that it should happen any minute. He appreciates the actual actions of the Creator and not their quality and how they are felt in his egoistic desire, which is not corrected yet. This means that he doesn’t care which states he goes through; what’s important is that the Creator should operate on him as much as possible.

This is what he prays for. He asks to go through as many changes as possible according to the Creator’s desire, since everything that the Creator does is for the good. Thus, his self-sacrifice is measured to the extent that he identifies with the Creator’s actions and expects them, of his voluntary slavery to the Creator, and the power of his prayer.

For the time being these are only the first stages of the spiritual work. Then the more controlled mutual work with the Creator begins, in mutual bestowal. A person already knows how to receive the powers for that and how to later work with them, how to start a dialogue with the Creator. Then he begins to work even with his desire to receive, by feeling the same tastes as the host and by feeling how the Creator tastes the refreshments and how he tastes it himself.

This whole path begins from the initial ascents and descents in which a person gets used to the domination of a foreign force over him.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/12, Shamati #21 

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The friends should make sure that I don’t fall and they should constantly think about me. I have to repay them for that because they also need this kind of support. Only if we mutually worry about one another, will no one fall or forget the goal. We will hold on to one another.

We have no chance of achieving anything if we don’t all support one another. If we don’t do that, we won’t exit the ego. This is mutual guarantee.

If I cannot think about others, it means that they don’t think about me. It is both the cause and the result that exist simultaneously under the condition of our mutual collective covenant. Then the Creator resides in it and thus fulfills our covenant. Without this we will undoubtedly forget about Him and start having foreign calculations by supposing that we advance and years may go by leading to nothing.

A person cannot keep on the right track by himself. Do you know how many moments we can count during a whole day in which we really advance: 3-5 seconds at the most! They are so few because each of us lacks the external support.

The vessel of my desire is external to me and I have to make efforts to attach it to me. If we don’t operate this way with regard to others, we do not operate correctly and therefore we don’t draw the Light that Reforms, because the Light operates only within our mutual work. It comes in response to our yearning.

If there are no such yearnings, the Light around us waits passively. “His honor fills the world,” but we have to activate it. We have to keep this main condition: mutual guarantee that is made of our collective interdependence on one another and of the obligation to everyone. Without it no one can succeed, even if we assess it from an egoistic point of view and what is more if it is about high intentions.
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From a Talk about Inner Work 9/30/12

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The Machsom is a psychological point, until which I work only for my own pleasure, after it, for the pleasure of the Creator or neighbor, someone outside of me. This is what I have to achieve.

This boundary, this degree, is called the Machsom. This boundary between our world and spiritual world is simply psychological. If I take care of myself, even if at the same time I am aspiring to the Creator, to spirituality, but still acting for myself, this, my state, is currently below the Machsom and is called “Lo Lishma.” And if I achieve that I think only about the Creator‘s pleasure, so that all pleasure would be not for myself, then I, my desires and intentions, are already beyond the Machsom and this, my state, is called “Lishma.”

The Machsom is a psychological point that I have to cross, and then I will be in spirituality, in the intention to bestow. Afterwards, when I am beyond the Machsom, I have to raise more and more of my desires and intentions over the Machsom.

Or you can also put it this way: Along with the growing ego in me, along with all the growing pleasures, I raise the point of my Machsom higher; while, on the basis of the desire to feel pleasure, it is revealed as the evil inclination, step by step, I raise the point of Machsom up to Ein Sof until all my desires will really be for bestowal.

It is not important how you put it: to raise intentions over the Machsom or to raise the condition of the Machsom until Ein Sof; what matters is that I am working on correcting the intention to use the growing desires, not for myself, but for others/the Creator.
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In certain states, the upper shows its reverse side in such a way so that I join it. Like a father to a son, he shows me how to play. Lowering himself to the level of a child, a father looks a little smarter and shows the son a small difference between what he is and what he should be. This is the reverse side of the upper one, not a father at his full height, but the difference between the child’s current state and the state when he has ascended one small step higher.

We can say that the Creator shows the current picture of the world to a person so like a child, he overcomes obstacles, taking this game seriously. However, this depends on the person. If he feels that he is in single concealment, that everything comes from the Creator, as a result of the past or as a precondition for the future, when time after time he sees that he cannot succeed, then the question arises: How can one rise above this?

First of all, should we ask for success? Of course not, because then a person would just use his normal egoistic desire and would distance himself from the Creator.

Perhaps, I should pray to the Creator so He does not send suffering for the past deeds or for the future reward? No, because this prayer would be attributed to self-interest. It is not designed for correction.

In both cases, a person seems to say to the Creator, “You have brought me closer to You. You shine the strongest Light on me now, and in it, I feel weaker, flawed, and corrupt. So, take Your Light back, so I can feel better!”

In reality, we need to ask for correction, “I agree with everything You teach me. It’s not the point. Let me experience troubles and problems if it is in favor of correction. But it hurts me and I curse You in my feelings, willingly or not: the overdrawn notice from the bank, a call from the police‑all my troubles. On the one hand, You shine a bit of Light on me, and I feel that You exist, but on the other hand, it makes me curse You in my uncorrected desires. I do not ask you to move away, depriving me of Your presence and the suffering associated with it. I ask something else: Correct me! Move closer in the feeling like the one who carries only good. Let me feel that You are the Good Who Does Good.”

Here, a very big problem arises: How can one judge oneself impartially? After all, I should ask this not to feel good, but only in order to justify Him. Just because of this, my heart aches. And if it does not ache, make it ache. I do not care about suffering, and in general about anything else except one thing: I do not want to condemn You. The issue is not about my feeling good I just want to raise You to the highest level, so that the property of bestowal and love that You represent become of the highest value to me.

If a person strives for this, he already begins to advance correctly. That is how single concealment should be felt, and how one should come out of it.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/2/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Each congress is a certain milestone, a certain level in our ascending to spirituality; we gradually begin to feel what is meant by unity, adhesion, and connection and what our development requires of us.

During workshops, lessons, and especially during congresses, each time, we push forward and break through to another level that advances us towards the great force, the altruistic force of nature.

From within it, in turn, we begin to perceive our ego. We begin to understand the meaning of our nature by our control of the new force of altruism and by beginning to attain it and reveal its contradictory meaning, the inner depth of the altruistic force. We see how great and wonderful these two forces are, if used correctly. Through studying both of these forces at the same time, with their help, we begin to see the depth of nature: its inanimate, vegetative, and animate components, and also the next levels of nature.

How can we grow further by continuing to develop both these forces in balance? The forces of egoism and altruism will continue to grow in us. But what is there beyond the horizon, that is, beyond the level of “Adam (man/human)”?

Let’s suppose, that we balanced all of this within us and on our animate level we arrived at a state where we completely control ourselves, that all of our actions are completely balanced, rational, and are found in the so-called middle line. Is there a continuation of the growth?

And here we really reveal the wonderful attribute of balance of these two lines. If you have attained balance, then both lines begin to lead you, like legs, alternately, this time the force of minus (egoism) grows, and next time the positive force (altruism) grows, and thus alternately, like two legs, you advance one step after the other forward. Together with this, your growth is not limited. Everything depends only on you.
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From “A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah” 9/23/12

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I am very pleased that we have begun to understand the greatness of the altruistic force through the connection between us, because in general this is the only opportunity to master it. This happens when we get together in the group and begin to try in some way to recreate and cultivate the state of bestowal, love, and mutual connection between us. When we are in mutual guarantee, mutual union, then we gradually start feeling what this adhesion can give us and how unusual it is.

On the basis of my practice, I think that the most important thing is to feel something unearthly, special, what emerges in a person. Inside it, the feeling, the property that was not familiar to him before, begins to be formed. He knows that it can be only inside the connection with others.

Then this property can gradually vanish, disappear like in a fog, cool down, dissolve, but a person still retains the information record of this state, so-called Reshimo. And he will still strive to it, will know, understand, and remember it. However, this is not enough; we must stir this property constantly and nurture it, as any bodily organ grows, any property, if we take care of it all the time. If we stir it repeatedly, it shows its new properties, new connections; it is not the same as it used to be. When we make it appear from obscurity where it was lost, we discover its new dimensions.

That is why unexplored paths, degrees, and states are before us. And on this path, we will certainly see many victories, ascents, disappointments, and what seem like losses. From all this with our constant effort, with a certain number of workshops and conventions, we will reach a point when this force that will manifest itself in us becomes so clearly felt and attained by us, so much in our power that we will control it. We will begin to interact with it and feel it as two partners feel each other in the dance.

This mutual action between a person, the force of bestowal and the force of reception (the man is the middle line), is the state that I hope we will be able to reach by the next convention, and perhaps even earlier. It all depends on how intensively we will be able to develop in ourselves those states that we have experienced and did not forget. So, everything is before us.
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From a Virtual Lesson 9/23/12

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How do we reach the next degree on the path to the revelation of the upper world? How do we enter the next, more corrected state? It is clear that every next state is us, but only more corrected, and thus, it is until we return to Infinity.

Rabash writes about this in the article, “The inclusion of the quality of mercy into judgment”: It is known that the most important thing in work is choice, as it is said, “Choose life.” “Life” is the union that we strive to achieve, in other words, a return to Infinity.

By adhering in the intention Lishma, a person is honored to adhere with the Source of life. And there is no choice in this obvious management. And that is why the upper raised Malchut, that is, the property of judgment to the “eyes.” Thus, concealment emerged, and the lower one noted a lack in the upper.

The upper is the next degree. So, why is there concealment? What would have happened if it were revealed?

Let’s suppose that I now reveal something great, powerful, and beautiful. It captures me completely, and like a baby, I cling to it, unable to let it go. However, by this, I reach nothing.

The great one conquered, captivated me, and I become full with the pleasure of belonging, but nothing more. After all, I cancel the gap between me and it, the gap that would have allowed me to understand what is happening, feeling and attaining it independently and not “being bought” by bliss.

How can I ascend to the next degree? How can I grow to its height, rather than cling to this mass like a grain of sand?

That is why the upper does not show itself to the lower. In other words, our next degree is not revealed to us, but emerges in concealment.

On the one hand, it exists, and we relate to it, and, on the other hand, it is not revealed. Instead of this, it brings us all sorts of negative phenomena. As a result, I supposedly want it, and at the same time, not so much.

For example, I go to a dealer to buy a car. I look at new models. I want them and don’t want them because the price is high. Then, I begin thinking, “Is it worth it or not? What do I gain if I buy or not buy? What is preferable?”

Through this, I learn something new. I grow and now understand, feel something, not just giving money if I have it.

It is the same thing with the next degree. I want to attain it, and, at the same time, I am afraid; having problems, I hesitate in this gap between the desire and the inability to achieve spirituality, and it helps me grow.

After all, I go forward myself. I must imagine the next degree without understanding it, but by means of what? Who will help me conceive the right idea? How do I prepare, “format,” myself with the help of this picture in order to enter it? All my hard work consists of imagining the next degree as much as possible and putting myself in the framework that becomes the “support” to rising to it.
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From the Convention of Unity, Day Two 9/21/12, Lesson 2

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All of reality is in a person. He thinks that he exists and that besides him there is a huge universe, but this picture is depicted only in his shattered vessel.

Once there was one vessel and in it a person felt one world, one reality, himself, and nothing but that. The Creator, which means the force that revives him, was also inside him. On the outside there was nothing and there was no such concept as “outside myself.” This is the correct perception, which we call “Malchut of Ein Sof (Infinity)”; everything is inside me and nothing is divided by boundaries, there is no boundary, it is infinite.

Then the vessel was broken into two parts. Now in order to attain Ein Sof and to acquire the true, deep perception of the upper dimension, there is only one thing we can do—go through infinite states of preparation, which is what we are doing now.

The world of Ein Sof divided into two parts: “I” and “outside myself,” and all my work is in connecting the two parts. This is why there is the condition of “love thy friend as thyself,” which I have to keep so that I will attach the external part to the internal part that I naturally feel as mine. If I could do that, I would return to Ein Sof.

Loving what is outside myself just as I love myself egoistically means to bestow, and that is the love of others. These words confuse us, but in fact it is about understanding that just as I love myself, I should understand that everything outside me is mine. It only seems to me that the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature and also people exist on the outside. I even discover the upper force internally, as it says, “You shall not have a foreign God.” Everything is inside me.

Baal HaSulam explains this in the “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” saying that there is a kind of “camera” in our consciousness, which depicts the outside world to us. This means that some of my desires are the inner feeling of my “self” that is divided into the “root,” “soul” and “body,” while the other part is the external picture that is divided into a “garment” and “temple.” According to another terminology, I divide myself into “mind,” “bones,” “tendons,” “flesh”, and “skin” and the external world into the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking nature.

There are different sayings regarding the perception of reality used by Kabbalists, such as: “Don’t do onto others what is hated by you,” “Love thy friend as thyself,” “unite in a group,” “you have whom to unite with,” “help them and they will help you,” since eventually it helps a person acquire the right attitude and to return to what he was before the shattering of the vessels. There, there are no “I” and “others”; there this whole world disappears; there we don’t feel the bodies, but only parts of the individual souls that connect more closely until they merge into one soul.

Baal HaSulam explains that in fact there is only one soul, which means the world of Ein Sof, one desire that is full of one force. It is the only thing that exists.

But by our exertion and by attainting this perception, we begin to feel what is happening in the world of Ein Sof in depth; we attain all its ten Sefirot with all the Lights of NRNHY. After attaining the initial state of a created being, through the second state, through the shattering, we arrive at a third state. Then we attain the root and all of reality and become like it, understanding and feeling like it, equal to it in every way.

Actually the point isn’t even in the equality; there are no words in our language to express this state. We are simply in it: There is no “I” that attains “Him,” that is somewhere on the outside. I am Him. This is called adhesion.
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From the Convention of Unity, Day Two 9/21/12, Lesson 4 

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Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”: Indeed, know that for this reason, the Torah was not given to our holy fathers—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—but was held until the exodus from Egypt, when they came out and became a whole nation of six hundred thousand men of twenty years of age or more. For then, each member of the nation was asked if he agreed to that exalted work. And once each and every one in the nation agreed to it in heart and soul, and said “We shall do and we shall hear,” it then became possible to keep the whole of the Torah, and that which was previously impossible became possible.

At first everyone participates individually in the group and not willingly but because he is compelled to do so. We see that we disrespect our obligations to our friends; we disrespect the option to be considerate of everyone and to follow the spiritual path. To what extent does a person understand that his advancement totally depends on his mutual cooperation and his connection with others, in rising above his ego, above his weakness and his laziness? Does he at least look for the powers of the general cooperation and the general doing?

If we keep these conditions, then out of a collection of just ordinary people we become a group. Then, like in the exile in Egypt, we experience different periods, good and bad, we work hard and we have to turn it into holy work for the Creator. Here everything depends upon how much people can identify the place in which they can fulfill the goal.

There can’t be an exodus from Egypt unless they find the deficiency within them which will enable them to unite more closely. This is because the exit from egoistic slavery is labor pains, when I simply have to reach connection, when I am better off dead than alive. Then I understand that I am buried in my desire, in my ego, like in a grave. From there I am born into the Light, but only if I connect with others. This is the only way the birth can take place. Then I reach the giving of the Torah, which means that I reach the instruction, the guide, the connection with others.

There can’t be any other kind of work and there can’t be an exodus from Egypt if I don’t cry out that I want to serve the Creator. It’s with this desire that Moses turns to Pharaoh: “I want to work for the Creator, to connect in mutual guarantee.” Therefore, I have to exit the ego, to rise above it, to escape from Pharaoh. It’s an obligation, since the next level is so desirable, so necessary, that I am like a developing embryo that can’t stay in its mother’s womb any more and must be born.

Baal HaSulam writes about it in the article “And This Is for Judah,” saying that the future redemption is already revealed in the previous level, in exile. The difference between exile (Galut  – גלות) and redemption (Geula – גאולה) is the letter “Aleph” (א), which symbolizes the Creator, the Champion of the world. The Creator can’t be revealed in exile—Galut since there can’t be a corrected vessel there. It’s because you are still in your ego, but when you rise above your ego, it’s called the exodus from Egypt, and then you acquire the first spiritual vessel and then you can reveal the Creator.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/12, “Matan Torah (Giving of the Torah)”

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