Question: There are so many beautiful bright people and forces in this world. And in spirituality, it is said, “There is none else besides Him,” dryly and simply. How can I feel attraction to the spiritual world and taste and pleasure from it so that I will want to rush there?

Answer: How can you feel an attraction to the upper world? If you felt more attraction than you do now, you would be driven by your egoism, you would never be able to rise above it to overcome it, and you would hasten there. So it is concealed in order to give us as the opportunity to make efforts that are above our ego, not for our self-benefit.

If we moved to the upper world through our egoism, we would forever stay within our selfishness, we would have no chance to get out of our egoistic shell, and we would be buried in it, buried alive. We would never go beyond the egoistic sphere.

If the upper world were revealed to you right now, you would immediately understand that this material realm is worth nothing at all! We would clearly see that people are animals that live only to feed themselves. I feel sorry for this life; at this point, nothing is worth our efforts, there is no sense to have children and continue suffering…nothing really matters! Is it clear? Then what?

Ah, there is the upper world! First and foremost, it’s eternity that is beyond any limitations. Time, movement, information, everything becomes completely open to us. Time ceases to exist; it only exists in this world, as physicists say, only below the speed of light. Information becomes completely available there. One begins sensing oneself as existing in infinite space. One acquires absolute knowledge about everything that is going on in the entire system of the worlds, in the whole universe, since this system is analog. There is not a system clock, it does not work on pulses; it is always in continuous motion and at the same time rests in calmness. You feel that you are inside of it and at the same time you know that It somehow exists within you, meaning that you are everything there is!

If you happen to see even the smallest piece of that picture, even one gram of it, you’d become a slave to this sensation. Baal HaSulam writes that if the revelation of the upper worlds to us would happen before the contraction of our desires (at which point a man becomes able to keep his egoism to himself and even rise above it), then even one drop of revelation of this enormous pleasure would force one to chop off his hands and feet seven times a day just to experience this sensation once in his lifetime.

Do you understand? You would be a slave and couldn’t do anything at all except to pursue this pleasure. You would make huge efforts in the group and everywhere else only to receive this sort of pleasure. In other words, you would aspire to it egoistically, and thus you would distance yourself away from it even more.

Question: How can we possibly want to achieve that state if we don’t have powers of our own?

Answer: Ask your friends. Only they can ensure your future. If they go for it, you’ll have it, if not, you won’t.
[85914]
From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 1

Related Material:
Rising Above Our Egoism
The First Barrier To Eternity
Khrakov Convention-Prayers

Filed under: Conventions, Perception, Q&A, Spirituality - No Comments →

If from the very beginning, albeit artificially, I “work hard” before the friends, if I bow my head before the group, at least on the physical level, I, in this way, prepare myself to discover my shame for my egoistic flaws and to stand in this sensation. I will be able to endure and “digest” it, I am not identifying with it, I will be grateful for it.

Shame sets me correctly before the Creator. Like fine-tuning, it makes it possible to catch the right wave. The greater my shame is, the more precisely I tune to the narrow range of frequency, the one that leads me to the Creator, to the properties that I want to acquire. And the picture does not become fuzzy in front of me; on the contrary, it is extremely focused.
[91650]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/12, Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)

Related Material:
The Truth About The Greatness Of Friends
Without Feeling Shame You Get Nowhere
If I Feel Shame, It Means That I Advance

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Perception - No Comments →

Question: What do I raise in my eyes by bowing before the friends?

Answer: Nothing. Self-diminution and the realization of the greatness of the Creator are two different but complementary things. Usually in the context of a relationship with the Creator, we are talking about the group, and in the context of a relationship with the group, we are talking about ourselves because the group is between me and the Creator.

Question: What is exactly revealed to me when I raise the group in my eyes?

Answer: The corrected system of the single soul that is at the end of correction. The system, that today, I see through the prism of my flaws.

This is what the greatness of the group is, and no less, because this is the truth. And although I cannot yet accept it as a fact, in the end, I will understand it completely.
[91647]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/12, Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)

Related Material:
Fine-Tuning To Bestowal
Tuning Into A Wave Of Bestowal
Without Feeling Shame You Get Nowhere

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Perception, Q&A - No Comments →

When reading The Zohar and wanting to imagine the next degree, one should try to join the efforts at this degree and this world, and the internal world, and the group, so that everything is in one structure because there is nothing else besides it.

If one is able to do that and discern “Israel (striving for the Creator), the Torah (the Reforming Light), and the Creator are one,” it is the sign that one has already obtained the right focus, the correct attitude to the true reality, which is correctly represented in it, but not outside of oneself.
[91192]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/25/12, The Zohar

Related Material:
Open Up The Zohar
The Spiritual Division Of Labor
The Mission Of The Nation That “Aspires To The Creator”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Perception, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: What should happen so that I will finally be able to understand something in The Study of the Ten Sefirot?

Answer: In order to understand what The Study of the Ten Sefirot is about, I have to feel these phenomena inside me. They don’t take place somewhere on the moon or in outer space. It isn’t about some external systems. All of reality is inside us, in me, and in me I have to feel all of reality. If I imagine it to myself, I think about how to perceive it and about how I can change it, about how the upper force comes to me and changes me. Thus I divide all of reality into myself and to the source that created me, that designed me, and that influences me, which means the Creator.

In me there is a desire to receive, and in Him there is a desire to bestow. His desire bestows upon my desire, and my desire can evoke His desire in response. Thus we begin to work together like partners.

There is nothing else but that. So it turns out that the friends are inside me. These are the attributes that are closest to me, to the part of the desire that I feel as myself. They make up that part of the desire in me, together with me, from which I can turn to the Creator and manage my fate. I also have to correct all my other desires and add them to this part until I am totally incorporated in the mutual work with the Creator.

This will happen when I receive the right desire for it and want for all of us to constantly feel this. I won’t separate myself from the world externally anymore, thinking that the world is somewhere outside myself, in the form of different countries, nations, and friends; I have to constantly imagine that everything is inside me according to the right perception of reality. Then I will begin to gradually approach that perception.

At the beginning, the world will remain in duality for me and I will see it outside of me, but imagine inside. However, gradually, thanks to the Returning Light, I will start to connect these two approaches into one picture. It won’t be the kind of split like schizophrenia. I will begin to feel the goodness and the indivisible unity of the picture. A person reaches his perception gradually due to obtaining the middle line.
[90915]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/22/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

Related Material:
Paint The World We Want!
Knowledge That Accumulates In The Heart
What Kabbalists Reveal

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Perception, Q&A - No Comments →

Question: What does it mean to draw the Light that Reforms?

Answer: When I read The Zohar, I want to see changes inside me, as if a stream of energy enters my internal system, a light, powers, new discernments, new attributes. Something influences me, and I want to feel what it is that influences me and performs changes in me. I want to know this and to feel the flavors and see how these changes take place in me and where inside me I can imagine everything that I read about in The Zohar so that it will not just be imagination, but that I will really feel it in my attributes. This is what I expect, the changes in my desire to receive.

We have to make collective efforts, in mutual help, and then the Light that Reforms will be much stronger than when it influences a single person. Then it is much easier to achieve something. But this is only if a person works with others, in connection with them. By that, he approaches the Light since his desires for the Light are not egoistic any more, but are similar to it in some way.

Of course it is still for himself, but a person tries to resemble the Light in some way and to seemingly become equal to it. This is called a “game.” Of course, I am asking for myself, but to some extent it is like the real and correct attribute of bestowal.

In what way is it similar? Several thousand egoists come together, all of them want to bestow, although deep in their soul everyone wants for himself and disrespects everyone else, but they make collective efforts, as if connecting, as if yearning, as if for the Creator, for bestowal—this “as if” is called a “game.” They “brainwash” each other’s minds as if it is really something great and important. In fact there is nothing real here, but this is what should be done in order to attain the upper level. This is because there is an abyss between the levels, and you cannot be in an upper level before you ascend to it, and in order to ascend you play it.

So we have to connect more strongly and to want to feel that that Light changes us. In the meantime it just changes us, but later our intention will be more accurate, so that it will change us in our connection, in unity, but this will come later. Now at least we have to aim at the influence of the Light.
[90908]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/22/12, The Zohar

Related Material:
Under The Infusion Of The Upper Light
The Magic Dress Of The Future
Playing The Game Is Serious Business

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Perception, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Zohar - No Comments →

While reading The Zohar, we first of all aim at the Light that Reforms. I think only about it as if I go through some healing process connected to an IV infusion with the upper force constantly flowing through me.

If I think about it, I can already advance. It says that the Torah is the essence of the holy names, which means the acts of bestowal, the Creator, the Light that Reforms, which brings me good thoughts and desires to bestow.

So I try to locate them inside me now while reading The Book of Zohar: “Perhaps something is happening in me?” I want to adhere to the same actions that the Light performs. I want it to perform them in me; I am ready to become Nukva, to receive everything. Let it come and dress in me and do whatever it wants with me.

This is called to “discover the holy names,” “to want to know what one studies, “to study the Torah,” to study the actions of the Light upon my desire to receive—how the Light reforms.

I don’t feel that the Light influences me, but I want to feel it! Being connected to an ordinary infusion a person can lie either unconsciously or consciously just looking at the drops dripping.

But we want to feel how the drops of the Light heal us and what each drop adds. I want to feel it because I want to learn about it, about how to act, how each drop changes my desire to receive; a drop here and a drop there, with relation to one thing or another. By that I learn how I can use every slight change in my recognition, in my understanding, when I get up after this healing process.

The main thing is that I expect to see the actions of the Creator in order to learn from them, in order to know what they are, who I am and how I can resemble the Light that influences me now. I have to perform actions that are identical to the Light’s, to learn from them, as it says: “From Your actions we shall know You.”
[90905]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/22/12, The Zohar

Related Material:
How To Approach The Light
The Magic Dress Of The Future
We Will Know You From Your Actions

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Perception, Prayer and Intention, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: By seeing the friend’s deficiencies, I actually see my own flaws. How can I identify the corrected state in the friend?

Answer: The work with the group is diversified and is carried on until the end of correction. What is more, my view of the group changes constantly. Even if there are only several people in the group, if I see them as great, if I see them as if there is nothing else in the world, as if they are all of my reality, the group becomes great in my eyes. Everything depends on how I value it, and how important it is to me. It is like a child for whom his father is the best in the world. Here the quantity and the quality are mixed.

Then I advance, and if I get close to the friends, I see the upper system in them, in which I have to be incorporated.

Just like the universe, with everything in it, the group includes all the spiritual worlds and new souls join it all the time, and it is actually the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). All the worlds are revealed in it as a system that connects us. By getting closer to one another, we shrink and “fold” them upwards, until they become the world of Ein Sof.

Accordingly, I begin to see the friends and reality differently. Now I identify the opportunities I am given; I begin to manage myself and reality by holding on to the direction of the same goal. I “lock” myself on it and yearn for such a mutual connection among us, which creates one desire. In it, according to our similarity to it, we will discover one force.

Thus I advance, by using myself, the group, and everything that is among us in order to attain this goal. I don’t have to leave the group; in it I discover everything: the Kabbalists, the souls, the spiritual Partzufim, the worlds, everything is connected and is included in it. This is what a person discovers according to his advancement.

Question: Does that mean that the group “transmits” in the frequency range of bestowal and only I, being uncorrected now, receive other egoistic frequencies?

Answer: That’s right, we are not tuned to the frequency of bestowal yet. It says: “One judges according to his own flaws.” This refers to all my senses; they are not real yet and in the meantime the egoistic desire operates in them and so instead of the right picture, I perceive and feel the blurred illusion of this world.

By correcting my feelings, I will see a different reality, but again it will be perceived and stabilized by my five spiritual senses. Until the end of correction, it will also be limited by the spiritual frameworks of the five Sefirot, the Partzufim, and the worlds. In the spiritual world, the perception is also only in matter and in form dressed in matter. It seems to us now that the moment we enter spirituality all the partitions will fall, but it isn’t so. There too a person attains everything in vessels, in his limited desires.

It is true that he attains the connection between different phenomena and that fills him, but the filling is also relative. But as for the perception of the true and whole reality, it comes at the end of correction and we don’t know what it is like…
[90574]
From the 1^st part to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/18/12, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Daybreak In The Depth Of Desire
A Universal Recipe For Success
Trust Your Friends, Not Yourself

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Perception, Q&A, Unity - No Comments →

When we begin to read The Book of Zohar we should notice two lines everywhere. But where? And should I evoke the left line?

We have already said that we only evoke the right line, as it says in Kabbalistic sources: “Always start from the right,” which means from the Light of Hassadim, in bestowal, in love, in connection, as if you are already in a completely corrected state and the left line doesn’t control anything; it is gone and we don’t see it; it is all controlled by the right.

We have to try and deal only with the right line by wanting to reveal infinite love and bestowal by the Light that Reforms, asking that it will illuminate on our connection with The Book of Zohar. We can read as if we simply read what is written, “counting the letters.” And there is connection with the text when I want to connect with the force that is concealed there, with the Light that Reforms, so that it will illuminate on me and change me. This Light evokes the left line in me, by illuminating on me and impressing me, thus evoking different interruptions, confusions, and thoughts that are different from love and connection.

Then, despite these interruptions, I have to try and feel love and bestowal and ask for correction so that the two lines will connect. I am not asking that the “evil will die” but that “they reform.” This is how we advance.

This means that I don’t have to worry about the left line. If I advance correctly in the right line, the left line is sure to appear. But when it appears, I have to make sure that I will control the right and it will control the left. This means that the left line doesn’t disappear; the evil inclination remains, but I turn it into a good inclination by creating the right cover for it from the right line, the intention of in order to bestow.

This is actually what we want to happen. So, in reading The Zohar we have to constantly think only about the love and connection among us. And we work with whatever is revealed.
[90423]
From the 2^nd part to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/12, The Zohar

Related Material:
Rise Above All Differences
The Work At Night
The Ascent Of The Bride

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Perception, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: It says that a person has to change himself internally, but where can he get the powers to do so?

Answer: We are not responsible for our internal desires of course, but we can influence them by external actions. This is flattery and a lie of course, but by annulling myself externally, I attain my internal self-annulment.

It is because I am doing this on purpose, wanting it to happen. So my actions are considered a prayer, a request for help, MAN, because I really want to impress myself by them.

This is why it is so helpful to actually humiliate yourself before the friends and this kind of work summons internal changes. A person is afraid to annul himself and to remain mindless and lose his own opinions, to lose his “self,” all his life experience and the perspective of life he has established. If he still thinks this, it is a sign that he hasn’t reached the recognition of his real humility, and hasn’t realized that there is no way he can succeed by himself.

He has not despaired of his own powers and so it is too soon for him to deal with this kind of work. He will have to wait a few more years, until eventually he will realize that nothing helps and all he has to do is to erase everything in him and to receive what his friends have.

He doesn’t know what they have, but he only knows that what they have is exactly what he needs and that he wants to get rid of what is in him.

Then a person begins to see that actually there was nothing in him but a little pride and concern for his ego. In fact all of spirituality, the whole upper level is external to him.
[90407]
From the 1^st part to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/12, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
A Mechanical Method Of Drawing The Upper Light
The Habit Of Humility
We Don’t Improve Our Foundation, But Replace It With A New One

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Perception, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →