Baal HaSulam, Letter No 2: I advise you to fear that your love might cool down even though our minds reject this possibility.

When we are in love, it seems to us that it will last forever. However, we know that in this world, everything is temporary. This state of affairs applies to spirituality as well since, there too, we continue climbing the next steps. So, it is natural that current states will disappear there  as well. That’s why there is nothing permanent whatsoever and why any condition will always be replaced with another one, either a bad one with a good one, or a good one with a bad one.

Still, make every possible effort to multiply love. If there is a way to increase love, but one doesn’t take advantage of it, it is considered an “omission.” It’s “as if” one gives a great present to one’s friend: the love that reveals in his friend’s heart at the moment of giving is different from the love that remains in his friend’s heart after the deed of giving is over.

In other words, love gradually vanishes. It “cools down” every day to the extent that it goes away completely and reaches a stage of oblivion. That’s why the recipient of the gift must search for the ways to regard the act of giving as recurrent and new every given day.

That is, we have to constantly renew the sensation of love and never allow our feelings to cool down. Everything happens inside us. To keep this sensation, we don’t necessarily have to receive new gifts each time. This rule also applies to unity among us that has to be instigated on a continual basis.

We have come to a state when each one of us cares for others as if they are our little children, our closest and most beloved ones. Thus, we strive to give them everything they want. If we manage to do so, we will provide others with everything they really need, and the Creator will manifest Himself among us as a result of our similarity to His properties.

Our attitude to each other and His property of absolute bestowal and love will somehow coincide. At least they will reach the first level of similarity of the 125 steps. It is the most important issue for us. We are in a state of a constant readiness and everything is in our hands.

We should persistently beg the Creator to give our friends everything they want, i.e., correction and revelation. Revelation is the property of bestowal and love among us. This is exactly what we mean by the term trepidation: a state of caring about our friends that is similar to taking care of our own children from two sides by judgment and  by love.

On the side of judgment, we should really worry that we will lose a chance as did the ARI’s students when he invited them to Jerusalem to bring the world to a state of correction. At that time, everything supported the upper force to be revealed to them, as the upper force was ready to act in this world and correct it. However, the ARI’s students found excuses not to obey their teacher’s invitation. Some of them didn’t show up because their wives wouldn’t let them go and others were busy.

This explains why we have to maintain the state of trepidation and be concerned that we won’t succeed. In every moment and every minute, we have to clarify how we should treat others and support the general Kli (vessel) in a way that it finally reaches a certain condition that will allow the Creator to reveal Himself to us.

It’s as if we are currently facing the Judge, and as if we are given the last opportunity, or granted the final word. Imagine yourself in this state! Visualize that we are facing judgment and that we have to fill it with mutual love. We will be able to do this only if we ask the Creator to fill the gaps between us.

It’s not us who get closer in our hearts, rather it is the Creator who fills the egoistic emptiness between us with love. When the distance between us is multiplied by love, a connection of tremendous intensity emerges. That is why our closeness happens only due to the Creator filling the ​empty spaces between us. He connects, coordinates, and unites us. That’s why our work is called the Creator’s work (Avodat a-Shem).

We only invite Him to do the work of correcting and strengthening our connection.
[144676]
From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day One” 9/19/14

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Question: Have I understood your explanation correctly, that in addition to the Sukkah that we build in the yard, it is up to us to build it also within the heart?

Answer: Absolutely. And the main thing is to build a Sukkah in the heart. After all, building a Sukkah in the yard is only a custom.

Building a Sukkah in the heart means organizing the desires, intentions, thoughts, yearnings, concerns, anxieties, gratitude, prayers, and everything that I have inside and separating them from the corporeal, beastly desires, which are the concerns for physical existence.

It is up to me to completely differentiate my physical part from the spiritual part. The physical part is concerned about food, sleep, and reproduction, and all of the ordinary human concerns. Whereas, the spiritual part is my reason for living, the goal of my existence, and the meaning of life. To attain the meaning of life, I must examine what desires within me are relevant to this goal.

The part of the desires that are dedicated to attaining the goal of life are called the soul. An entire person is desires. There are physical, corporeal desires that are relevant to this world, as they are with any animal; and there are desires that are beyond physical existence: “What is the reason for my life?” “Who is managing me?” “What will happen to me?” “When will this life be over?” “Must I live merely like a beast or is there something beyond this?”

The wisdom of Kabbalah explains that a person must rise to another level beyond physical existence. Throughout life, a person must rise to the next level and begin to live on the level of the Creator. The next level is attained, thanks to acquiring the characteristics of bestowal and love, from which it is possible to see a reality that is beyond this world, to see a world of forces, an infinite reality in which there is no time, movement, space, life or death.

We reach an unlimited development that is called the world to come. And all of this happens during our lifetime in this world, here and now. As it is written: “You will see your world during your life.” We live in a period in which every person can attain it, to the degree that he desires it.

Developing within me characteristics of bestowal and love, meaning developing the soul, is called building a Sukkah within me. For this, it is up to me to scrutinize the desires that exist within me that are linked together and are on different levels of bestowal and reception.

All of these desires are only in regard to a relationship with others and are directed outside of me. No desire is directed towards me. When I compare all of these desires, seeing which of them are closer to charity, which are closer to overcoming, which are more or less limited, I build a kind of envelope around my soul that is like a Sukkah.

Question: Do I examine the entire system of my relationships with other people, and from these relationships build the walls and the thatch for the Sukkah in my heart?

Answer: In a sense this is correct, but it is not that simple. Much time is required to discover my desires and to see what they truly are. After that, when I read books of Kabbalah, I see that I am built precisely according to what is written in them, and so gradually a Sukkah is built in my heart as the outer clothing of this system of relationships.
[145071]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/2/14

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We lack only one thing, which is a need, in every state, to reveal that “There is none else besides the Creator.” At first, this statement is completely abstract because I only read about it in a book.

But later, it becomes closer and closer to me and I see that “There is none else besides Him” in everything that happens around me, in all the people I meet and in all events. The Creator is concealed behind all of that, Him and no one else.

“There is none else besides Him” in my thoughts means that it is He who put these thoughts into me, and I am only sensing them. And when it comes to how I perceive and react to these thoughts, here too “There is none else besides Him.”

Do I make the decision about how to react? Is there anything in my reaction that is from my own self, or is there only “None else besides Him?” By delving into these questions deeper and deeper, I come to adherence with Him.

If there is actually “None else besides Him” in any state, any place,  any thought, or in any of my supposed decisions or actions, it means that everything is determined by the Creator. In essence, I am simply discovering that He decides everything, and I only have one point from which I can establish that everywhere, in everything, the Creator is the one operating. This is how I reveal that I am completely adhered to Him.

Striving to constantly hold on to “None Else Besides Him” and to discover the Creator in each of our thoughts and desires, in heart and mind, brings us to adhesion with the Creator. Nothing more is required of us, this is the most important. We simply need to train ourselves to this attitude in all of our daily life.

How should one work with concealment, with the fact that there is me, there is the upper force, and concealment between us? How should I relate to this concealment?

In essence, concealment stems from my own desires that are intended for revealing the Creator. If they were not meant for revealing the Creator, then I would not sense concealment within them. Generally, I would not even feel them as relating to the Creator.

There are a great many desires, which at the moment, lay dormant inside of me, without manifesting themselves in any way. But in those desires where I consciously feel the Creator’s concealment, I have the possibility of revealing Him first and foremost, on the condition of working with them correctly. This concealment is the state that precedes revelation.

It follows that the main concealment occurs on the very principle of “None else besides Him,” forcing me to attribute actions to myself or to others. Accordingly, I divide reality into my own self and the world around me.

However, if I attributed all the actions that are in my mind, reason, and the surrounding still, vegetative, animate, and human world to the Creator, then I would feel the corrected Shechina (divinity). Only the point from which I see that everything is done by the Creator is called the point of restriction, the point of my “I.”

Without this point, there is no creature, but everything else, except it, belongs to the Creator. And if inside of me I see “None else besides Him,” and all around me “None else besides Him,” then I reveal that indeed “There is none else besides Him.” It is not difficult at all. We simply need to strengthen each other in this intention. If you agree, then let’s sign the contract of mutual guarantee. There is no need for anything else.

This principle of “There is none else besides Him” is the only thing that you need to implement. We perform many actions in this world, but all of that is simply in order to help us hold on in this intention of “None else besides Him” through any activity. There is nothing else that we need to do besides that.
[145102]
From the Workshop on 10/6/2014

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Question: How can we begin to feel in the holiday of Sukkot all the concepts that you are telling us about: the surrounding lights, the upper force of nature?

Answer: By being among us and taking part in the holiday lessons, activities, and meals, one can sense this taste a little bit. However, in order to experience the true feeling of this holiday, an enormous preparation is required. As it is written, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”

One can taste, see, and feel the upper Light, or the Creator, the overall force of all of Creation only after the work of preparation in which a person forms a special, altruistic organ of perception within himself.

To perceive any natural phenomenon, a specialized suitable instrument, a detector, is required. The Creator is a force of love and bestowal. If, inside of me, there also would be even a little bit of bestowal and love for my neighbor, then I would be able to feel the Creator and to reveal Him.

However, if there is no love within me, it means that the Creator is concealed. It isn’t Him concealing Himself from me, but I conceal myself from Him since, as it is written, “The whole earth is full of His glory.” This force fills all of reality, except for me. I do not have the power of love and bestowal, and therefore I am unable to feel that such a force exists around me.

I am like a radio receiver that does not have the required wavelength range, and therefore I cannot catch His wave and do not know whether He exists or not. For me, it is as if He does not exist.

This is what the entire work of changing oneself and correcting one’s attitude toward others is dedicated to, and with it I tune myself like a radio receiver to the Creator’s wavelength, the wave of love and bestowal.

This is why the wisdom of Kabbalah has this name. It is the science of receiving (Kabbalah), receiving the Creator’s signal. A person cannot reach this instantaneously. He needs to study in order to first feel what properties he has right now and what he needs to change in himself in order to reach the state of revelation.

The correct process is, as it is written, “From the love of the creatures to the love of the Creator.” We exist in the world full of rocks, plants, animals, and people so that we can exercise our correct attitude to them so as to develop inside oneself the sensitivity to that wavelength on which connection with the Creator is realized.

Question: Why is it that, during a holiday, a special feeling appears and is experienced by many people?

Answer: During the holiday, there is a small, general light, spreading between everyone. It happens because many people are awaiting the holiday. Their desire acts in the world and generates this illumination. However, it is still very far from the action of the upper Light that Kabbalah is talking about.
[145018]
From KabTv’s: “New Life” 10/2/14

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Question: The holidays of the Israeli nation are a continuum of phases that a person goes through when he decides to follow the path of loving others. Every holiday is a stop along this path in the process of the complete fulfillment of this goal. What is the place of Sukkot in this chain of events?

Answer: Just like any other phenomenon, it is difficult to explain what the holidays mean from a Kabbalistic perspective because it is about something that a person doesn’t yet feel and still has to develop his sensitivity to.

At the beginning of creation we were in direct, constant, and revealed contact with the upper force that created us, but in that state we didn’t understand Him and were not aware of Him yet, as if we were an embryo in his mother’s womb adhered to her and existing thanks to her.

In order to make mature created beings out of us who understand the Creator and know Him, to study His attributes, t0 become like Him, and to relate to Him like He relates to us, there was the Tzimtzum (restriction) and concealment. The created beings suddenly were detached from the Creator.

It turns out that there is a created being—a man, humanity—and in contrast, there is the Creator, the force that manages everything and operates creation. There is nothing other than the force of the Creator and man who was created by Him, whom He wants to raise to His level.

In order to allow a person to grow, the Creator places a Masach (screen) of concealment between Himself and the created being, a thick partition. I don’t see the Creator behind this partition, but I have to try to find Him, as if by playing hide and seek,  trying to see Him in everything that happens to me and inside me,.

On the whole, there is no other work in the world other than the constant representation of the Creator before me. I have to try to discover the Creator in all my thoughts, desires and feelings, and in everything that happens around me. I have to receive everything as Masachim  (screens) that conceal the Creator behind them.

I have to feel that it is only the Creator who fills the whole world and operates everything, including me, of course. All my work is to remove the concealments and return to the state of a revealed contact with the Creator when I understand, know, and feel Him to the depth of the previous concealment, by turning the whole Aviut (thickness) of the partition into an area for His revelation!

This area, which previously created the concealment, now becomes the area of revelation that is called the upper worlds and by which I begin to understand and feel the Creator. I exert myself during the concealment in order to reveal Him, and thanks to that I grow and learn to understand and be just like Him.

The Creator wanted to teach me and reveal His attributes to me and this has been successful. Now we know and understand one another. I feel everything that He wanted to teach me by the concealment. After correcting the concealment to revelation, there is mutual love and openness between us and we reach complete adhesion. We must go through this process, as this is the whole plan of creation.

There are levels in the concealment, starting from the easier ones to the increasingly more difficult ones. Eventually I find myself behind five levels of concealment called the worlds. In order to get closer to the Creator and to know Him, I have to reveal Him on every level.

The five levels of concealment are divided into five parts and each one is divided into five other parts making a total of 125 levels that separate me from the Creator. On each level, I have to turn the concealment into revelation, the lack of understanding to understanding and the lack of feeling to feeling. And thus I acquire the Creator’s attributes and change from one level to the next.

This is nothing like scientific research in this world when a physicist remains the way he was after revealing something new. The levels of spiritual revelation change the researcher himself.

After all, the attributes of the Creator are opposite from my attributes. I totally receive and He totally bestows. Therefore, I have to change the Masach that conceals Him from reception to bestowal in order to reveal Him. Because my attributes are opposite from the Creator’s, the Masach conceals Him, and by turning it to bestowal, I advance and get closer to the Creator.
[144912]
From the program “A New Life” 10/05/14

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 Question: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) is the most significant day of the year for the people of Israel. What is the spiritual meaning of this special day? How should we relate to it in order to correspond to its spiritual roots and to transfer our life to a new degree?

 Answer: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) is not simply a tradition. It reflects a special spiritual state in a person’s development. We shouldn’t look at this day separately, but as a part of the entire year’s cycle.

Upon the completion of a year, that being a cycle of internal changes, we evaluate everything that we went through, which is called “repentance.” Thus we decide that it is necessary to rise to a new degree, to begin the new year (Rosh Hashanah), cross to a new state, a higher, purer, more exalted one. So we crown the Creator, the force of bestowal and love, setting Him up to reign over us as the most sublime property.

This is when we begin to judge ourselves: are we truly in the property of bestowal? All our properties are divided into ten parts, ten Sefirot. And we are clarifying which desires in those ten parts can be corrected, and which cannot.

In essence, a person’s soul needs to be corrected. And a soul is all our desires, which are still corrupted and need correction.

 Question: What exactly needs to be corrected: one’s actions or the soul?

Answer: In our world, actions are performed with hands and feet, or through words. But the wisdom of Kabbalah explains that most important is a corrected intention, which is the true desire of a person.

Actions alone aren’t enough, because I can perform them simply out of habit. Then, it is actually more difficult for me not to do them than to do them. And these can be the actions that I otherwise would never have made in my life had I not been accustomed to them from childhood.

In this case, it is no longer fulfillment of a commandment but traditions instilled in childhood that are performed automatically. For someone it might be difficult to carry them out, but for someone else, it is difficult to not do them.

This is why we are not speaking about an action, but rather an intention. An action, after all, does not change: As we have been doing it, so we will continue. But in intention, in a person’s attitude towards the performed action, there is always change.

The key is a person’s attitude to those around him. After all, love for one’s neighbor as for oneself is the great law of the Torah. This is the point of view from which I need to check myself in order to see how much I am capable of loving my neighbor.

The upper force is a force of bestowal and love, and our goal is to become like it. This is why we need to reach the degree of man, Adam, which means similar to (Domeh) the Creator. But how can we check this? Where is that doctor who will irradiate me with an X-Ray and tell me exactly how similar I am to the Creator?

Such a doctor does not exist, so a person needs to check himself on his own. This kind of X-Ray machine requires a special Light, which checks us. This Light is called the Light that Reforms.

If I am studying the true Torah, namely the wisdom of Kabbalah, then thanks to it, I start to see the truth. I see how egoistic I am, what exactly is it in me that is bad, and what needs to be corrected, as if I shine an X-Ray on myself.

This is only visible to me and others may not notice it. And after I have seen myself on the X-Ray image, it becomes clear to me what needs to be corrected. The Torah arranges this image where I only see intentions, and only to the level of the depth which I am capable of correcting. Everything else I do not see, and it can remain until the next year.

Immediately after the onset of the new year, I find myself in these X-ray sessions, which are called ten days of repentance. I irradiate my heart, clarifying my intentions with respect to those around me in each action, and get back these images.

Kabbalah explains that Malchut ascends to Bina and compares herself to it. Malchut is our egoistic desire, which rises to Bina, the desire for bestowal, clarifying the extent to which it differs from it, how far we are from caring for our neighbors, from good relations, and how we are only thinking about our own benefit.

 Question: What is shown on these X-ray images?

Answer: This image is black-and-white. It shows how much white there is in you, that is, the intentions for the benefit of your neighbor. And the black color points to the intentions for your own benefit, which you can correct.

Thus, the scope of our work is revealed to us. This is personal work that is in store for each of us, but it is aimed at the commonality, at bestowal to all, and through them, to the Creator, which is from the love of the created beings, to love of the Creator. The Creator is a force, integrating everyone together, and not something that exists outside. It is written: “The Creator dwells among his people.”

Thus, if I strive to unite with everyone and want to turn into one whole with them, then I reveal the overall integral system that generalizes our unity, which is called the Creator. This is how it is revealed in our perception.

Therefore, during Yom Kippur we need to strive to love our neighbor as much as possible and wider, and even beyond the people of Israel, extending it to all mankind. This is the reason why during Yom Kippur it is customary to read the story about the prophet Jonah, whom the Creator instructed to lead the city of Nineveh, which symbolizes the world, to correction.
[144598]
From the TV Show “The New Life” #438. 9/30/2014

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Question: For years we have been studying Kabbalah; we understand our path, strive to the property of bestowal. But at the last moment, fear arises about how to combine reception and bestowal, i.e., fear before the property of bestowal. I understand that it should be done not for myself but only for the sake of the Creator. How can we not be afraid of that?

Answer: Who gives you these feelings? Who controls your feelings and your mind? Who is inside you and causes you to have these perceptions? The Creator. So, talk to Him as He tightens the control in you, and sets up your sensual and thinking apparatus for a certain excitement.

For what reason is He doing this? If you begin to connect with His work and begin to explore what He causes in you and for what purpose. you will begin to feel the Creator and yourself as partners.

After all, He produces everything, not in you, but in your so-called desire, which He also created and upon which He is now working, causing certain disturbances within it. According to these disturbances, you have to find the correct answer of what you would like Him to do. Or, you agree that He does anything He desires, but teaches you how to relate to Him correctly. Start looking for the right dialogue with the Creator.

However, if you start doing this and do not take it through the group, it will not be the Creator, but only your psychological, emotional and mental conclusions. The Creator is within the group of ten. This is the problem of all the psychologists and other researchers who cannot understand where He hides.

Question: You said that the desire for the property of bestowal is manifested for a moment, and then we lose it, again feel for a moment, and lose it again. In order to feel our unity, should we wish this all together in one second?

Answer: A short-term collective desire will not help us. We need to accumulate a certain potential for a certain time so that our tension is correct. This is called “the world, the year, the soul” (Olam, Shana, Nefesh). That is, in spite of all the transformation that we are experiencing, if we direct this correctly towards the goal, unite, find the upper point between us, and adhere to it, then we gradually accumulate the required tension and the revelation of the Creator takes place.
[144609]
From the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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Question: How do you understand what the Creator is?

Answer: It is impossible to understand the Creator.

We are a desire to receive, so whatever we feel, we can understand to the extent that we feel and understand our desires. Our desire comes first. Then the mind perceives, thinks, and assesses what it feels. Thus, it is impossible to know and attain the Creator without feeling Him. Feeling the Creator is nothing but feeling the connection between us. We perceive Him as the right connection between us since He is “come and see,” Bore (in Hebrew).

The Creator doesn’t exist inside me. The connection that is properly established among us allows me to understand that the Creator is inside me and this is what He is called. I don’t feel, don’t understand, and don’t know this. This is something, in and of itself, and is my first and basic source. I can feel Him inside me to the extent that I resemble Him. I don’t feel Him, but rather the corrected attributes that resemble Him and that I call the Creator.

Baal HaSulam gives us the example of an electric current. We don’t know what it is, but we can only see and feel its manifestation: a needle moving in a measuring device, a light shining, it heats, cools, etc. But, what is this actually?  It is some kind of energy that is not understood, because everything we wish to feel, see, or measure is its revelation in matter and not the actual source. This means that it is already matter that has been transformed.

Therefore the Creator is called come and see, and it is what’s inside us.

Question: So how can we personalize His control?

Answer: We shouldn’t personalize Him personally and must not give it any form! That is a terrible mistake. If you do that, you descend to paganism and don’t work on correcting yourself, but rather, depict a kind of figure whom you ask for mercy.
[141358]
From the Convention In Toronto “Day One” 8/04/14, Meal 1

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The inner changes required for a person to connect with others to a complete adherence with connection, unity, and mutual sharing that balances us with nature is not a simple process. The stages of changes of this type are connected to a cycle that ultimately closes at a beginning point.

It is up to us to pass through this entire cycle, to correct ourselves, and transform into a useful part of nature, not a cancerous tumor within it that devours everything around it and destroys the globe. A person must be a source of health and comfort for all the good and balance in nature.

Every year these states return as in a spiral and repeat themselves on higher levels. Essentially, a year is the number of stages through which we must pass in our connection and in order to reach the goal.

This cycle of stages of correction was discovered by Abraham in ancient times. He taught his students who became the source of the creation of the Jewish people. So this is expressed in the annual cycle of the Jewish holidays.

We must understand that the Jewish holidays are not the tradition of a particular nation or of one people. Rather they are symbols of unique spiritual states in which we attain mutual bestowal, love between us on higher levels, and a greater depth of integration in this connection in heart and mind.

This is not a celebration of particular historical events that were experienced by some isolated people and not relevant to the general program of nature. These holidays reflect spiritual states of the people as a community. They are already latent in nature as particular levels of our equivalence with nature as we advance towards states of balance and harmony.

If we identify ourselves as a people and connect among us to one degree or another by attaining a particular level of unity that is latent in nature, then we specifically celebrate this event. When we rise a little further to the next level of connection with nature and equivalence of form with it, we again celebrate this attainment.

A person doesn’t establish the holidays for himself according to his decision; rather, he celebrates the attainment of similarity and adherence that already exists in nature. So these holidays cannot be changed.

In our state today we are completely opposite to integral nature. All of the parts of nature are linked one hundred percent in a unified system. Only the human species is found in total destruction and opposite the natural unity.

However, if humanity, or at least part of it, will begin to transform itself into becoming similar to nature, will approach its form of unity and totality, then we will reach a particular degree of connection. First of all, it is up to us to recognize that we hate each other. This is the nature with which we are born.

This is called “recognition of evil,” the awareness that our opposite nature doesn’t allow us to reach harmony and balance with it. For this we require internal scrutiny, and we must pray to Lehitpalel (incriminate –Lehaplil) ourselves. Such confession prior to Rosh Hashanah is called the “month of Elul.”

At this time, we scrutinize our true state in relation to that good and wonderful state of connection we must reach. This means that we discover what is said to be the corrected state, we compare it with our present state, we see the immense gap between them, and so we pray to Mitpalelim (judge ourselves).

We understand what criminals we are and what we must do with ourselves, so we begin to organize the work to begin to advance towards connection. The power that is found in nature and connects all of its parts we proclaim as the ruling power that controls us! This power holds the entire system together and becomes our goal. We yearn to resemble it. This is called Rosh Hashanah, the beginning (Rosh) of our changes (Shinuim) and the new cycle at the end of which we want to be like the general power that permeates nature.
[144178]
From the program “A New Life” 9/14/14

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The Upper Light is at absolute rest, and the Creator is good and benevolent. This means that we are always standing in the presence of the Light, the absolute good that never changes. We are the only ones who change.

It is possible to pray only for my own correction. To ask the Creator to change is worthless because He is absolutely good to everyone, without exception, and cannot be otherwise.

The correct perception of reality is the understanding that there cannot be change in the Light and not even in us, but in me alone. This is because how I feel each one in the world and all the changes that everyone undergoes are determined only by how I myself am changed. Instead of demanding that others change, through mutual cooperation with them, I must summon a change in me, and then the whole world will be changed.

Wise people have long understood from their life experiences that it is meaningless to try to change others. Nobody is going to change and everything depends upon me. The wisdom of Kabbalah brings a person to a very simple perception of reality and explains that each one must correct only himself and not others.

But in order to convince myself to change, I require an environment. By influencing society, I influence myself. I seemingly want to improve the environment, but ultimately the environment influences me and changes me.

I play with the Creator and with the environment, but this is to influence me. Ultimately I change myself this way, by becoming similar to the Creator. I then attain a true perception of reality and I will see it as it is seen from the side of the Light, from the side of the Creator.

The Creator gave us this opportunity to change ourselves gradually, to constantly produce changes within ourselves to become more like Him, through the environment. If I perceive the whole world and all of the friends as perfect and only myself as requiring correction, by accommodating myself to them, I will be found in constant work that brings me closer to the level of the Creator.

And in truth, it doesn’t matter what happens in the environment, who is right and who is wrong. I perceive all of this as the Creator’s game with me. He is the one who organizes all of this theater around me to help me adapt myself to Him. For if there is none else besides Him and He is good that does good, then any other image that doesn’t come from the only good force testifies to my inner corruption that I must correct.

So I must be in a process of scrutinizing myself all the time, in an internal dialogue with the Creator scrutinizing what He is giving something to me to see, to hear, to taste, to touch, to think, and to imagine. What memories float up in me, what thoughts spin around within me?

The Creator creates an entire world around me so that I will not forget, even for a moment, that all this is made by Him, that I am conducting an incessant dialogue with Him, that I want to discover Him, and to understand! This is like an infant to whom something is said, but he doesn’t understand anything, and just looks with open-mouthed excitement. This is how we also must try to understand at every moment what the Creator wants to tell us through this whole world that He shows us.

Essentially there is only a very small desire for pleasure to receive, that feels itself as if it exists in a physical body with hands and feet, and around it there are other forms, other bodies, a whole world. This immense world is changing all the time, everything goes around within it. All this exists only in my inner perception, in my desire to receive and is portrayed within my imagination, but doesn’t exist in reality.

We live in an imaginary world like this. All of its images are shaped within our ego so that we will interpret them correctly. If we accept the intention to bestow over our desire to receive, then instead of all of the forms of this world, we will feel the Upper Light that fills all of reality. We must reach such a final form of perception.

All of the work is to correct our inner perception, to be released from this pathological imagination in which we now exist, from this imaginary world, and come to the simple, Upper Light. Through work with the environment, imagining ourselves as closer and closer to the Upper Light, meaning bestowal, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” we can change our perception; and instead of this world, we feel the Upper World.

This distorted perception that portrays this physical world for us will disappear and in its place we will feel the one Creator, and see that besides Him, there is nothing. And we exist within Him and everything is immersed in an ocean of white Light. This will be the true perception, and not the imaginary reality in which we now live.
[143698]
From the Convention In Chile “Day One” 7/30/14, Lesson 2

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