Question: On one hand, the spiritual system is subordinate to unshakeable laws. On the other, there is individual management. How does it all work?

Answer: The general and the individual management are divided only in our perception. In truth, it is not so. Our reactions, the personal journey of each one—everything is programmed into the system and is predetermined. However, in our view, these acts unfold gradually and require our effort in finding our freewill.

All of this is due to our inability to harmonize the two opposites. Originally, they were revealed to Abraham. The Creator told him that his seed will be named Isaac and commanded him to lay Isaac on the altar. These acts are as far from each other as day and night. However, for the Creator, there is no difference. Light and darkness are one.

He brought the point of desire out of Light by creating darkness, but only in relation to the created beings so that they could feel having been created and existing separately from the Creator. In truth, the desire to feel pleasure, which we feel independently simply doesn’t exist.

The general and individual governance in our eyes are as different as the following two principles: “If I am not for me, who is for me?” and “There is none else besides Him.” All of this manifests before us as a game, like an exercise, so that while we are ascending the rungs of our desire, we are able to see how different they are, to see the rivalry of the right and the left lines and make up the middle line. Until the very final correction (Gmar Tikkun), we will be experiencing the imbalance of these two constantly colliding opposites.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/8/10, The Zohar

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We are all linked to each other, like organs, sinews, and cells of one body. Our body is an interweaving of infinite links between minute parts, systems, and cells. That is also how we are interwoven between us and linked to each other. We are apparently found in some sphere which is entirely filled with all kinds of threads and types of connection that link us into one. There are billions of links and every link acts at the “speed of light,” really with infinite speed.

We don’t need to arrange and stabilize these links in ourselves, they are revealed in us ready-made. This is revealed to us from the state of Malchut of the world of Infinity; this passes through a shattering and these parts are revealed before us as apparently far from each other.

But in fact, this distance between them is required for us to create a “sensitivity,” to focus the “resolution,” making it possible for us to see them and the links between them. Otherwise this is impossible; we can distinguish the details of the picture only on condition that they are separate, only in the gap between them.

Therefore, in order to see the entire general system and to be included in it, we must realize the principle of “And you shall love your friend as yourself.” For “your friend” is not some stranger; rather, this is myself. And no matter what I look at, I see my parts that are found outside of me and seem distant and remote, opposite me, so that in this manner I will better discover the concept of the shattering. The stronger the shattering works in me, the more the world seems fragmented and unattainable. This fragmentation testifies to the intensity of the shattering in me.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/18/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Please explain how you establish internal contact with people?

Answer: I try to search for and immerse myself in the place where spirituality is revealed, and each time to re-enter there from our external world. Through the external group, I go inside it in a way where faces and material characters disappear and only the points in the hearts are exposed; I delve into the relationship between them, their connection in one place, and through it, I penetrate more and more deeply into their spiritual properties.

This work has to be done over and over again, and this place constantly expands while acquiring more components, supplying the spirit of life. At this point, when you walk in and experience that connection, tangible forms of connection begin to manifest: the spiritual Partzuf with the occurrence and Histaklut of Light, the complete TANTA (Taamim–Nekudot–Tagin–Otiyot, the taste of the filling and the gradual departure of the Light leaving memories, letters, the tools for further work)

And this place is the internal oneness that expands to the entire creation so that you feel it is all around, that there is nothing but it. And conversely, the entire material world that was all of your reality and which left one tiny point for spirituality, contracts, and this spiritual point grows and fills the entire universe!

And finally, the corporeal world fades away from the foreground, as if the still, vegetative and animate levels are not the most important things for a person. In truth, you start feeling that those people are completely controlled from Above and don’t have any freewill or independent identity. Hence, this world vanishes from your perception. And what is left is only the place where all these spiritual relationships exist. You recognize the upper and the lower ones there, all the Partzufim and how they work with each other and are starting to better understand all of it. And it all depends on how much effort a person exerts in order to have it revealed.

We have to return to it anew each time since we are constantly thrown out from spirituality, pushed down to this world, and we return to the external picture, suddenly seeing the same faces and this entire world that cover the internal picture from us.

And a person starts making more effort striving to penetrate it so that the inner world will grow and expand onto the whole world. In this way, spirituality constantly either contracts and returns to a point or expands again—as if it is breathing.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/10/10, Letter #13

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The Creator wants the created beings to understand and to attain Him correctly. He chose the language of “pleasure” or “sufferings” to which we respond. The Creator created the desire to receive so that will feel this language.

The Creator “pricks” the created being, and he cries, “Ouch!” He spills a drop of sweet syrup on him and the created being is impressed, “Ah!” And so our whole life goes by between the “ouch” and the “ah.” He speaks to us by using this language: A drop of sweetness, a drop of bitterness, and different combinations of the two lead to endless nuances and various shades.

Thus the Creator develops the desire from a primitive desire to a more sophisticated, versatile desire by feeding it gradually: a spoonful of sweetness and a spoonful that is a bit more bitter, so one tastes all the different flavors.

This variety (TANTA) is born in my desire to receive, according to the way I begin to respond and to feel the Creator’s bestowal. He constantly influences me, either by pleasures or by deficiencies, by bitterness or by sweetness.

I don’t know why the Creator has chosen this bittersweet language to communicate with His created being. I only know that if I perceive all this bitterness and sweetness, if I feel them in all my desire to receive, then by that I will learn to understand the Creator. I will be able to understand not the actual bitterness and sweetness and how they are felt in my desire, but I will discover Him, the one who has chosen this language in order to communicate with me.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/08/13, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: How will it help me if I think that everything comes from one benevolent force, the Creator, if I am forced to struggle with each problem individually and deal with them separately?

Answer: If you fight every problem separately, you will never get your life in order! You will keep trying to defeat these alien forces: your boss at work, your wife, your neighbor, friends, and foes, the entire world, and you will waste all your life only to see that you resolve nothing.

Everyone will be disappointed here and very much so since we put ourselves at the mercy of thousands of reasons and people who are acting simply like robots! They are parts of our own souls, but since we haven’t attached them to ourselves correctly, we think they have their own power.

The instant you start connecting them to yourself and loving them “as you love yourself,” you will discover that they truly are like “yourself” and belong to you, and that beside them there is only one force that is at work and which arranges all this for you. And by themselves, they don’t exist and act independently.

The moment, you worry about various problems and can’t sleep, it is all because you can’t imagine yourself as a baby in the Creator’s arms. Feel how He is holding you in His arms, and you have nothing to worry about. The only thing worth worrying about is: When will I really perceive myself, unveil the Creator, and experience His love for me, which means becoming similar to Him and able to receive all this?

When the properties of love and bestowal emerge in you, you will feel how much He loves you. And if you yourself cannot love, how will you feel His love? If you hate everything that surrounds you, you will feel only hatred from everything and won’t stop suffering!

But if you could relate to everybody with love, you would feel only love that fills the entire world. It depends solely on your qualities, desires, Kelim.

So you have to, on one hand, keep calm since everything is in the hands of the Creator and “There is none else but Him,” “the good Who does good.” But on the other hand, “nobody will help me but me” to practically achieve the perception of “There is none else but Him.”

In fact, in order to feel this way, I need to have my attributes corrected and then I will be able to perceive what is really happening in reality. I am surrounded by the Light of the world of infinity, except that I don’t feel it! This is the only thing I should worry about, my properties (Kelim), in order to experience this infinity.

What else is there to worry about? Everything else is a mere illusion manifesting in my corrupted properties. And I worry about illusory problems that are painted by my corrupted senses; I am scared of shadows like a little child.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How do we look to you in your inner sight from the other side of the internal screen?

Answer: You look like internal organs of the soul; it’s a spiritual, anatomical picture where only desires are visible. There is nothing else in spirituality. There is one desire and everything is included in it as its parts. Nothing is seen separately and it feels like one common field.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/10/10, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What is our ego, is it a feeling or a mental perception?

Answer: We can compare the brain to a movie screen since it is actually blank. Today, for example, you seem to be ugly and disgusting, and tomorrow after a change of state, I may look at you and see before me a fine guy that radiates vitality. Does my brain depict these pictures, is it the screen? Or do I project them? My ego, my interest, depicts all these figures, but we don’t understand this until the end.

We believe that we are objective when it comes to the still, vegetative, and animate nature, but on the level of the speaking, in the relations between us, there are different variables. Generally speaking, we don’t actually understand that we are the ones depicting our own world on every level of the desire to receive.

This is why our world is called imaginary since it doesn’t actually exist. The moment you clean your ego from the perception of this world, it will disappear. And what will be left? Nothing?

So what will we be left with? Start establishing this “something” now. Start building a new world. It all depends on what you draw on the screen of your perception.

Question: But how do we draw these pictures if they immediately seem real to me?

Answer: I imagine a force that controls me, that surrounds me, that manages me and confuses me, sending me positive and negative things. This whole situation, the bubble I am in, operates on me; it is like a science fiction movie since we have to imagine something and work on something in our imagination. So I imagine a certain space in which a certain force or a force field operates. In the meantime, I cannot manage without this three dimensional illusion with the different phenomena of time and space. I am connected to it whether I want to be or not.

I imagine a force that surrounds me as if I am in a cloud. This force operates on me in every direction and in every possible aspect. Even now when I think about it, it actually operates me; I am relaxed, let it operate me. But what do I have besides this operation?

Because without any additions of my own, I can only constantly yearn for a good feeling and how to thank this force for its good care. It has created a deficiency in my feeling, a desire to receive, and I feel good in this world under its domination.

It turns out that we don’t need anything but that. The whole philosophy of the epicurean school is based on this approach. Other Eastern methods also believe in nirvana and peacefulness. This attitude is in fact the deepest since it is based both on the fear of disrupting something in creation and on the fear of cursing the Creator. So I have to constantly feel good. I constantly try to be calm and relaxed and to be happy with what I have, not because the ego drives me to do so but because of a more sublime intention. In short Abraham worked well with this approach in Babylon.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/02/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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In fact I am not in the world, but the world is in me.

The process of “reading” the external reality as internal is divided into four stages and immediately at the first step I should be guided only by what I see.

And I see that the Creator is making this “projection” for me. It’s as if a projector is placed in me and it shows the whole world and all that happens to it. The light from the “bulb” of this “projector” passes through the “film,” divided into “frames,” and falls on the “screen,” i.e., in my mind; as a result, I see a current picture of the world. Well, the Creator Himself is the abstract Upper Light, the Light of Infinity.

So, in fact, the “film” is my Reshimot that create this or that picture for me. And if it were not for this mechanism, I would have not distinguished what is happening because the Reshimot would have remained inside. However, the Creator, illuminating them, reveals my inner world as an external reality.

Baal HaSulam writes about this in “Introduction to The Book of Zohar.”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/22/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”: If there is any definition that can tell spiritual from corporeal, it belongs only to those who have attained a spiritual thing and felt it. These are the genuine Kabbalists; thus, it is the wisdom of Kabbalah that we need.

This material world is completely detached from spirituality. Kabbalists explain to us that our material world is simply an outcome of our imagination. After we wake up, we’ll see that we “were as dreamers.” This dream and our existence in it seems real; however, at its core it is imaginary and illusive.

But we are unable to make the distinction. There is a reality and there are five sensors through which we can investigate the reality. Our exploration of this realm is called “science,” a complex of dependable knowledge that we use as guidance. With the help of science, people produce medications, build houses, etc., thus make our lives better. The set of knowledge that we call “science” is very reliable, trustworthy, and tested. This explains why science makes us more confident and satisfies us.

However, we keep thinking about “life after death.” We don’t know what it is. Physically, one dies together with one’s body, and yet it’s not a secret that on top of it there is a certain part in us, a spiritual component. There are no solid proofs of this fact; moreover, the wisdom of Kabbalah states that there is no spiritual constituent in us whatsoever. The one who hasn’t attained spirituality stays at an “animate,” physical level for one’s entire life. It’s not an accident that Baal HaSulam once said that he didn’t care where his “sack of bones” would be buried. However, we do have a chance to alter our nature in a way that in addition to our “animal” existence we also disclose life in another dimension, a spiritual reality.

It is very straightforward: whatever one manages to attain is all one actually has. Fantasizing won’t help; nothing from this world can be related to spirituality. Spirituality exists independently and if we are not yet there, we just cannot deliberate on it. Therefore, scientists do not explore this topic since they don’t have relevant “tools” for it.

And yet, there is a special approach to life that is called “philosophy.” It speculates on topics that are impossible to explore using traditional scientific methods. As a result, philosophers come up with various opinions about the spiritual world as if they sense, understand, or have access to it. No doubt that it’s clearly a wrong, unscientific approach that has nothing to do with science or common sense. It’s all about fantasizing; so, it’s not an accident that nowadays the word “philosophy” became derogatory. Those who are detached from reality are called “philosophers.” And rightly so.

That’s why Baal HaSulam was strongly against the philosophical approach. Previously, when it was impossible to reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah to the masses, philosophers could talk profusely about their views. Today, the wisdom of Kabbalah spreads out into the world, whereas philosophers continue to discuss things that they do not have any contact with, thus confusing people even more.

Baal HaSulam explains that philosophical constructions have no basis and that you can’t listen to philosophers since they mystify and puzzle themselves and others, thus depriving humanity of a chance to speed up their progress in attaining the goal of creation. After all, doesn’t the goal of creation come before and stay above all other things? If we don’t hurry up, if we let philosophers confuse us even more, we’ll be triggering additional afflictions. This is what concerned Baal HaSulam.

By the way, a curious question arises: How can sober, thinking people fantasize about something they haven’t yet attained, have no proofs of, and is something they have never tested or analyzed? This mystery of philosophy still has no answer.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/2/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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