Question: How can we keep the feeling of workshops during the breaks, meals, and so on, at the upcoming convention?

Answer: We must prepare such external conditions so that they always keep people in this state. A person comes to the convention in the morning and leaves in the evening. During this time, he must go through many spiritual states and, in the evening, leave not as he came in the morning. He goes to bed and literally turns off.

Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, it is the same thing; that is, these are three days of very serious work. We must do everything to ensure that the entire convention is held at this pace and in such a sequence that people are constantly moving forward. Even the breaks and meals must influence him in this way, forcing, moving him forward.

A convention is a very serious event. Alcohol is absolutely prohibited. We must rise to a level where it will not be necessary. We have enough adrenaline at the workshops. You will feel that you are all together, in “one skin”; the Creator will clothe into you.

Question: How can I see the world as one creation? How can I see unity above the breaking?

Answer: It should be opened to you not mentally, not in the mind, but manifested in your feelings. The internal connections of the world will be revealed, and you will see this within yourself.

Question: How do I feel the common need, Hissaron?

Answer: This arises out of a total inclusion into each other because all of our left, meaning all kinds of egoistic feelings stem from the mutual inclusion.

Question: What Kli, vessel, would you like to see in front of you?

Answer: One ready to do anything for the sake of unity. Nothing else is needed! With this, we come into accord, in balance with the upper Light. It is manifested in us, and that’s all. The implementation really is not easy, but the principle is very simple: There is a force that will work in you if you give it this opportunity.
[85263]
From a Virtual Lesson 7/29/12

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Question: How can it be explained that the crisis is a consequence of our corrupt relations in the group?

Answer: There are two systems: the outer and the inner one. For simplicity we can define the outer system as the “Creator” and the inner, meaning us, as “creation.” The Creator is acting upon us and we are developing under the pressure of various factors. However, afterwards comes the time when we have to react with responses showing the Creator that we want to advance.

And here is where the problem occurs. Today we have to demonstrate our maturity and desire to join the Creator. Our “childhood” has ended. In reality the childhood ended back in the 15th century, at the time of Ari. Since then we are required to react to the influencing factors as adults, in a special way. We have to start growing independently until the inner sphere expands in its scale and properties to the size of the outer sphere. However, we are behind the schedule.

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The desire to receive cannot change anything except its intention. Imagine that your arms and legs are tied, what can you do? Nothing depends on you except your intention, similarly there is no other way the desire to receive can act.

It only knows how to receive, so let it receive and do the only thing it can do. The point is that sometimes it receives with the intention for itself and sometimes it closes itself and refuses to receive.

But how can I refuse to receive if my mouth is constantly open? How can I close myself? Only by my intention! If I don’t consider what I receive as receiving since it doesn’t bring me pleasure, it isn’t considered receiving any more.

Although I really want this filling, I don’t enjoy it since the desire was given to me by nature, but I don’t enjoy by the power of my recognition. The action of my desire to receive is to change the attitude to itself, to decide how to work with the desire.

To the extent that the Light influences me by allowing me to rise above my desire, I decide what to do with it: to restrict my desire or to allow myself to receive a little in order to enjoy. But what should I enjoy for? I may decide to enjoy for myself or for bestowal. It may be a necessary act of receiving which is not condemned or praised.

It all depends on what I enjoy for: in order to bring pleasure to the host, to the Creator, or in order to bring pleasure to myself. It may be that we both need to receive pleasure. If we connect like two loving friends, we enjoy the fact that we give to one another, which means the fillings or the connection between us.

We can have many such thoughts and decisions, but they are all related to the intention. I cannot change anything more than that: my mouth is open, my arms are tied—this is what my desire to receive looks like. Everything is solved only in “faith above reason,” in our thoughts. It is only about the actions that are below the Masach (screen).

Only my attitude to what happens to me counts, and it is the only thing that matters. I correct my attitude to what is going on until it becomes exactly like the Creator’s. This means that we have reached full adhesion with Him.

By that you will feel how important our intention is. Only our intention belongs to the level of the speaking. We measure our level according to the power of our intention.
[85163]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/5/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: How do we really address the Creator without making an idol for ourselves?

Answer: Man makes an idol for himself instead of the Creator because it’s easier for him that way. Egoism is always trying to switch the goal, the means, and the values with which it would be much simpler for it. He searches for some kind of fulfillment for his pride, a quick fulfillment or compensation.

Our ego is unconsciously avoiding suffering, which is imperceptible to man who is incapable of catching it by its tail. And if he has already gotten stuck in it, he can’t make correct conclusions.

This is a problem. Only if man receives the correct definitions from the environment, friends, and books, and listens to the teacher’s advice, then possibly, he may be able to keep safe from the “evil eye.” It’s written that in most cases death comes from the evil eye, meaning that when man looks at the spiritual, he does not look with a kind eye, but with an evil, egoistic one, turning it to his benefit. This indicates that he is unable to cleanse himself from his self-interest and thus “buries” himself.

So how does one save oneself from the evil eye, which kills man? Try to look at the world with the eyes of another, meaning, with the eyes of the friends. And then you will see it objectively, regardless of your ego.
[85185]
From the lesson on a letter by Baal HaSulam, 8/8/12

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From Baal HaSulam’s Letter No. 38: But the most important is the labor, to wish to toil in His work. This is because the ordinary work does not count at all, but only the bits that are beyond the ordinary, which are called “labor.” It is like a person who needs a pound of bread for satiation—his whole meal is not considered a satiating meal, except for the last bit of the pound. That bit, for all its smallness, makes the meal satiating. Similarly, from each work, the Creator draws only the surplus beyond the ordinary, and they will become the Kelim (vessels) for the reception of the Upper Light. You should realize this very well!

We don’t notice that every action of ours is divided into HaVaYaH, into four phases: the entire process, any and every fragment of it, every single movement, even the smallest one.

Eventually, a person gets to realize that he is incapable of anything on his own and that only the upper Light can act and only the Creator is able to perform the action. The Creator reveals Himself and starts acting only to the extent that a person clears the room for Him, for the state that is called “None else besides Him.” If a person doesn’t come to this kind of result, it means that he hasn’t concluded his action.

Our work is to blow away the concealment and allow the space for the King, so that He rules over everything. It happens only at the end of each effort, and by that a person sees that it is the only thing he needs to learn.

Hence, it means that a person hasn’t come to the end of his exertion, nor has he achieved the goal, since he failed to clear the room for the Creator and implore Him to reveal Himself in the point of his utmost exertion, which one tries to resolve on one’s own.

It’s important to develop sensitivity and a “touch” in order to tell whether we have managed to complete our actions each time, that is, whether we have compelled the Creator to reveal Himself to us even more and whether we succeeded to make a little more room for Him—for the property of bestowal that takes over certain qualities of ours.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/12

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The upper can help the lower under the condition that the lower is trying to unite with the upper. But it is impossible to unite alone with the upper because adhesion means that you wish to bring the corrupted vessel of bestowal to Him for Him to correct it, because we are corrupted.

But when do I feel this way?—When I wish to unite with someone and am incapable of it. Then I take this broken vessel and say to the upper: “Correct it!” He corrects it, and then I acquire a whole vessel with a certain degree of bestowal. I perform an action in it—actual connection in a corrected vessel—and then I attain a spiritual degree.

In other words, I had a small broken glass. I asked the upper one to fix it and He corrected it; in other words, He has given me strength to glue this glass together to make it whole. Now I can fill this glass by performing an act of bestowal, and I will fill it. This means that I have reached the level of Nefesh de-Nefesh of the World of Assiya.

And once again I turn to my friends, the group, and once again I analyze my lack of desire to continue to advance, I analyze how broken my vessel is. And once again I ask the upper one to correct it. But I must give Him something to correct. Otherwise, what will I bring to Him, what is my request? I must come and cry about the broken vessel, like a small child comes and cries over a broken cup. And then the upper one will correct it, and once again I fill the corrected vessel with the bestowal I desired and I attain the next spiritual degree, Ruach de-Nefesh of the World of Assiya. In this way I ascend the 125 degrees.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/7/12, The Zohar

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The only thing we have to attain is that “there is none else besides Him.” This is attained only by the oppositeness, by what is called “help against.” The Creator sends us different interruptions, which seem to come from different forces, which are strange and opposite to the Creator and by chance. It seems that the interruptions are random: the force of impurity, Pharaoh, this whole world. We think that these foreign sources are the cause of all our problems.

But we have to overcome this feeling and constantly hold on to the thought that we have to reveal the Creator in everything that happens. If we see Him in every incident in this world, we begin to see the source in them, the Creator’s way and His attitude. Thus the Creator teaches us by showing us who He is in very secret cunning ways.

The Creator is playing with us when He conceals and reveals Himself alternately again and again. When He is concealed, we feel this concealment as unpleasant events in this life. But we have to discover that it’s merely a puppet show and that it’s all managed by a great director. Only the puppets seem real: the still, vegetative, and animate nature and the people living in this world. It seems that they are alive and that they can move by themselves, that they have free will and that they act independently. But if we look at this world as a lifeless wrapping and that only the upper force gives it life, we’ll get closer to the revelation of the Creator.

This work isn’t simple and is only possible by overcoming the difficulties. In order to do that we need the support of the friends, the mutual guarantee that doesn’t let a person forget about this work and which constantly keeps him in the thought of “there is none else besides Him.”

When a person feels weakness and despair, he has to understand that these feelings were also sent by the Creator, who is playing with him now. A person must immediately start a dialog with Him and begin the inner clarifications, which are more straightforward as we are facing the Creator directly. All these efforts eventually bring a person to the “gate of tears.” This means that although he is controlled by many other desires, somewhere in their center a desire to overcome himself and reach the love and the fear of the Creator appears for a brief moment. The Creator is revealed among all the foreign thoughts and situations that actually conceal Him.

A person has to do his best to see the Creator’s force in every imaginary form of life, which seems real and independent to him, and to understand why the Creator did this. In order to do so, he has to examine what is going on and to discover all this. After all, the Creator has only one intention: to be revealed to a person.

Thanks to these efforts, a person learns about the nature of the Creator’s attitude towards him, as he knows Him from His actions. The Creator hides through concealment and it’s as if He is playing with a person in order to teach him how he should also conceal and reveal himself. When the Creator is revealed, a person has to conceal himself so that he wouldn’t think that he has reached this revelation by himself. So he has to cover himself with a Masach (screen).

When the Creator is concealed a person has to yearn to discover Him. Thus in the mutual work as each takes a step forward and then a step backwards, it’s as if they are dancing a tango together, as they create concealment and revelation, once on the side of the Creator and once on the side of the created being; they build a stable Masach between them.

A person’s ego is hidden behind the Masach while he, the desires in his heart, rise above the ego, above the Masach and are revealed before the Creator. Then the Creator can also be revealed in the same way before a person.

The moment this happens, the gates of tears open up, after a person understands this game, accepts it, and is happy as he sees the great importance of the One with whom he is in contact. Then a person can accept all the events in life gladly, no matter how difficult they are and how confusing they may be. After all, it is thanks to them that he manages to build up a great account of all his efforts, penny by penny.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/3/12

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Baal HaSulam, “Thou Hast Hemmed Me in Behind and Before:” Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before, meaning the revelation and concealment of the face of the Creator. This is because indeed, “His kingdom ruleth over all,” and everything will return to its root because there is no place vacant of Him.
A person has an opportunity to be in connection with the upper force, with the Light that advances us, either directly according to the likeness to Him, or in the opposite form according to the discrepancy, and, of course, both these approaches can be combined in some way. It is not necessarily one direction or the opposite to it, that is, either zero or 180 degrees, but we are always under the influence of the Light, and we have no freedom of choice in this. The Light always affects us. What depends on us is only to choose whether His face is turned toward us or the opposite side is.

Kabbalists tell us about this because we are able to influence this. After all, there are plenty of very important systems operating in the spiritual worlds about which they do not say a word to us because we cannot establish any communication with them. These systems affect us only from one side, and that is why nothing is told about them.

Of all the great systems, Kabbalists reveal to us a small fragment through which we can change our destiny. They do not tell us anything about the part where we can do nothing with ourselves.

That is why, if Baal HaSulam writes that the Creator embraces us behind and before, this means that we do have the opportunity to feel the Creator, not on the opposite side, but to reveal His face, and it will change our destiny the entire 180 degrees. To do this, all the time we need to seek the revelation of Shechina—the power of love and bestowal that we are trying to reveal according to the similarity of our properties to It.

However, the opposite side is disclosed when we act according to our own conditions, our egoistic properties. If, in all these situations, we are not trying to achieve congruence with upper management, to reveal His face, then His opposite side is revealed to us.

This determines how we will feel upper management. If the opposite side is turned to us, then in the dark, we think that we are able to do something ourselves. We believe that we operate and manage ourselves, but, for some reason, we do not succeed.

When upper management is turned toward us, we reveal the other side: that the Creator acts in everything. We discover this if we are not going to change anything except ourselves. We want to turn ourselves toward the Creator.

However, finding that He acts in everything, we also reveal that He is kind and does good and that is why we are pleased to see that all our actions come from Him. This is the essence of open management that is always good. Hidden control is always felt as pain and suffering.
[84761]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What is love above the ego?

Answer: First by the efforts a person makes in the group, in the study, in using all the options, he should value the attribute of bestowal very highly. A person goes through many states of giving and bestowal that he isn’t aware of at all, as he feels himself as “dead.” He can be in opposing states, wanting only to receive, or feel disappointed about the way or the opposite, meaning to be in high spirits. But a person should rise above all these opposite polar states. There is the state itself and I rise above it. The state was sent from Above by the Creator who thus wants to check how we respond and rise above every state.

A person usually feels indifference and disrespect. But if he says that he doesn’t want to believe what he sees and starts doing something about regaining his inspiration, the sensitivity, the feeling of vitality in bestowal, his special attitude towards his correction, meaning above the indifference and the disrespect, then he will gradually draw upon himself the Light that Reforms.

I begin to value the attribute of bestowal, the advancement towards the Creator, towards His revelation, the states that are above this world. If I already value this and aspire to bestow, I have a vessel. I want to feel that I’m lost within the attribute of bestowal, that I value it more than anything. Why did this suddenly happen? This is how the upper Light bestowed upon me and now I want to have this attribute too.

The question is also why do I want it? I may feel that I’ll feel better with it, that it will free me of all troubles and worries. Is it bad to feel that I don’t belong to this world? Many people want to detach themselves from it.

So I should check the reason why I’m doing this. The upper Light stimulates me and inserts the appreciation of bestowal into me, but what kind of bestowal, perhaps egoistic bestowal? I check myself with the help of the group and the friends, to see whether I can, with the help of my apparent aspiration for the attribute of bestowal, attain it and feel it. Do I want to bestow in order to bestow upon others, or am I doing this in order to receive something: respect or appreciation? I check all this within the group.

Why do I do that? So that I’ll feel good? No! So that others will feel good? Yes! But do I know that it’s so and that inside I don’t actually hope to get something in return? I check it by asking whether I aspire to bring the Creator pleasure through the friends. Here my true distant goal has to be revealed. I suddenly discover that I want to direct all my actions of bestowal towards the Creator.

But here too I still have to clarify things, since to bestow upon the Creator is undoubtedly worthwhile. After all, He will certainly understand, discover and pay me for my loyalty, and if I reach this, my whole life is filled with different priorities. But no! I want to bestow so that the Creator knows nothing about it and only in order to be in the attribute of bestowal.

I examine my actions according to the extent that I can rise above my egoistic desires. If I don’t constantly examine myself as to how to raise bestowal above receiving, I’ll not be able to hold on to bestowal under any circumstances. I must constantly check what I have gained and what I have lost and whether I can ignore my losses. This means, whether I can receive a filling and be above this.

I have constant calculations in my desires to receive as to what extent I can remain in true bestowal. One is based on the other. After all, there is no way to assess whether or not you are doing this for yourself, in the vessels of bestowal, in the aspiration to bestow, but only if under all this there are desires to receive which I restrict to build upon them a Masach and the Returning Light, which means my actions of bestowal.
[84853]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/5/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What does it mean to ask the Creator?
Answer: Asking the Creator means that you are aware of the power that operates in the entire creation, you realize that you depend on it, and no one but It acts. You begin to feel that indeed this power exists, operates, and manages everything; then you have whom to turn to and with what.

To do this, you need to reveal that it is not you who acts, but He, for good or for evil, in which He acts, He does what you need that He would do. And He causes you all possible evil, so that you pay attention to who you are, to what extent you are not capable of anything. This is what is revealed to the world in the current crisis.

And then you start to advance in this awareness and to learn on what you really depend until you reveal Him, firstly, as the evil because you feel bad. Then, you move slowly forward, you begin to grow wiser and realize that all this is for your own good, and even if you feel bad, you know that He acts on you in order to lead you to the good, as a teacher. And although in the earthly feelings you don’t think it is good, you start to recognize His properties, become aware of his actions and understand that they are good.

You identify with Him despite the bad feeling. And this gives you a new mind and feelings, the spiritual rather than the earthly ones. And although the body is suffering, you want to adhere to the plan of creation, for this purpose more than to your body. Then you ask Him to raise you, you are performing such acts, that this upper one gives you new values so that you adhere to His mind and feelings, to His plan, to everything that He does instead of remaining in your desire to enjoy. To the extent you are asking this, to that extent, the value of bestowal and love becomes higher than reception and rejection of others. Thus, you are advancing further and further.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/12, The Book of Zohar

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