Question: How can we bring our common prayer into the study?

Answer: Everything that we study is revealed in the connection between us. We reveal the picture of our connection, the one soul.

The soul is the connection between all of the parts, which we can only imagine. The soul is everything that was created, all of creation together, the whole of reality, including our world. Even though our world is “imaginary,” it is also part of the same unified soul.

There is nothing except this one soul, which is the vessel that the Creator, the Light, created. But we can imagine this soul and discover its inner power only by connecting all of the parts and turning it into a living organism.

The Light is the life animating force. To feel life, we must connect all the internal parts into one body, putting each part in its place: the brain, the heart, the liver, the kidneys, the legs, the arms, and so on. If a person is able to perceive all of them as one body, even in the simplest form where most of the organs still do not function, but all of it connects properly, then the spiritual picture on the first degree is revealed to him.

We cannot discover half or a quarter of the soul. In the spiritual world this does not exist. There is no “partial” in spirituality, but only a whole structure of ten complete Sefirot, not nine and not eleven. So I must reveal the full picture.

In this complete picture I reveal every part of reality that I see before me. I see the place of all nations and the entire universe, all the first ten Sefirot, what belongs where, and what force operates everything. I see all this within myself. I discover myself and nothing besides that.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is the study, the discovery of oneself. In this way, I reveal reality. All of creation is me.

Through the study, we need to accept this picture and imagine it correctly. Then it will become clear to us that Kabbalists write about what’s going on inside them. After all, a person is the whole world. Everything you see now is portrayed from within, and it is only an optical illusion that it exists outside.
[60923]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/2011, TES

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To develop our spiritual sensation, we unite and connect. We have to attain the kind of unity that is called, “mutual guarantee.” Essentially, this is the vessel for feeling the spiritual, eternal and perfect life that is outside the body.

For that we have to do what Kabbalists, who are people that have already gone through this path, advise us to. They are our teachers and are therefore called “Rabbanim” in Hebrew, which is the plural of Rav, meaning a “great” person before whom I bend down my head like before an experienced instructor that is worthwhile to listen to.

He accomplished the transition from the sensation of just this world to the sensation of the upper world, and moreover, he went through many states and levels there. Therefore he can help me with advice throughout the whole path, until I complete my development in the true world. By virtue of Kabbalists, I reveal the gates to the world, enter it, and advance.

Kabbalits advise us to unite, and in that unity, by making great efforts in spite of our egoism and natural disregard, to look precisely for the feelings we disregard. I reject the neighbor and hate him, I am unable to even think about how we can be truly close to one another. But Kabbalists tell us that we have to be as one man with one heart, uniting in the mind and feeling to such an extent that no boundaries will remain between us in thoughts or desires.

This is all painfully opposite to our nature. We are being offered such conditions that we would be willing to trade them for anything else. We are nauseous from this and are thrown away from it at every moment in different directions—anything but unity. We just want to cover ourselves up with half-hearted advice and actions, lie to ourselves and others that everything is normal…But we can’t.

What can help us here are demands imposed by physical unity: We act all together and no one can evade his responsibilities. That is exactly why we are in this world of actions that are not defined by intention. In spirituality, the thought is the action, but in corporeality they are divided: I can think about one thing, desire another, and do a third.

This is the wonderful quality of our world: Here we can start the path to spirituality without even yet thinking about it for real or wishing for it sincerely. We are able to make actions that pride, passion, ambition, envy, and shame incite us to do—everything that is inherent to our egoism.

Therefore, being in the group, at the end of the day, I must carry out what it obligates each of its members to do. After that, by virtue of that, I advance involuntarily. I must only push myself into the group, take on obligations, and sign a “unified agreement” with the friends that under any circumstances, they have obliged me and I have obliged them to need one another. That is how we advance, using our egoism.

Thus, in our world we have the opportunity to start the spiritual path from zero, from pure ambition. We activate its negative qualities, connecting with one another by the unity of mutual help, and use all the negative qualities just to observe this unity. In this case, you obligate the friend and he obligates you, and you both advance, having no other choice.

This is exactly what we saw when we went to the convention in the Arava desert. We found ourselves together without external influences and discovered that the group can obligate every person to rise and come closer to the sensation outside the body, where a person begins to discern details hitherto unknown, a different existence “outside of the skin of his body.” It turns out that “outside of us” is really possible. That is how we advance.

Today we can unite with one another in this world by means of the right egoistic actions. However, now every one of us has to “jump out of his skin,” rise above his personal egoism, above his entire being, and unite with friends into a single whole. Stated differently, every person must rise above himself and go from the material group to the spiritual one.

Then the common vessel will form, the common soul, the holy Shechina where we will reveal the Creator on the first spiritual level. We made a big step toward this and acquired a common sensation, and now we must strengthen ourselves.

Thus, we build the vessel of mutual guarantee: We pledge not to forget one another and all together we take care of our spiritual life. After all, this is the purpose of our current existence in the material world, the goal of all people and this whole reality. Only by virtue of mutual care will we rise to the level of spiritual unity.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson on 11/20/11, “Mutual Guarantee”

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Our current state is imaginary. Kabbalists compare the perception of this world with a person who has lost consciousness and is experiencing certain vibrations in the brain, certain random impulses that beget an illusionary and misleading image within him. And this makes him feel like he is alive and exists in a real world, perceiving it much like as it sometimes happens in a dream. But in reality, there is nothing from true reality in it.

There are a number of actions we can do to help us in this state, to make us wake up, or make an effort towards awakening. The idea is to try to imagine the true state, completely unrelated to our world, while being in our imaginary state.

We exist in this true state connected with one desire. No one perceives himself individually, but every one perceives this oneness. It’s neither “I” nor “we” because “we” is still a multiple sum of “I.”

But there is no sum; there is just that oneness where we exist with no differences between us! We need to try to rise from the image we now perceive to a “there is none else beside Him” state, where there is only One, and nothing else. And everything that is outside of Him is a consequence of the loss of consciousness. We need to try to imagine this situation.

“Everything that exists is one soul.” This is the formula of reality, and it determines the place of our work and the form of our life that we must attain. From it we begin to draw all the directions of our behavior, understanding of the method, and the true state. We will only be able to learn and understand what the upper world is from there. We will not learn about it in our world.

And regarding the economy of the future, it also must come from there. Otherwise it’s unclear how it’s possible for only one to exist. The laws of connection and behavior that exist in this oneness, the relationships and actions, all these things are only learned in a state where we exist as one. There are no physical bodies, this whole world does not exist; our heart and mind rise to this level of oneness.

As a result of everyone’s efforts, we will begin to perceive this reality and what’s happening in it. We will establish the relationships between us in accordance with it and understand the material we are studying and our attitude towards the world and dissemination.

Our head must be inside this One, while our body must be separated from Him and only follow instructions. Then we’ll see how uncomplicated this path really is. The main thing is the first contact with the reality of this one force called: “There is none else beside Him.”
[60760]
From Lesson 1, Israel Arvut Convention, 11/11/2011

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Question: If there are no separate parts, what does The Book of Zohar describe, the way one soul corrects itself?

Answer: The Book of Zohar tells us how we connect into one soul. After all, there is nothing else to talk about. There is a perfect state, one soul, and there is an imperfect state when the soul is shattered. We have to return ourselves to the perfect state.

Essentially, the shattering exists only in our consciousness. When we discover what is corrupt, we will see that everything is corrected. I only need to correct my perception, my vision. This is why this wisdom is called the “wisdom of Kabbalah” (“Kabbalah” means “reception” in Hebrew)—it is the wisdom about how to receive, to perceive reality. That’s all! Reality is perfect, and there was no shattering—it is all with regards to those who receive, a person who attains it.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/2011, The Zohar

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Our perception is very limited. We cannot understand what our history is and what the Torah tells us when it describes the enslavement in Egypt and the Exodus.

But what is history? Now I feel that I exist in some reality, and I divide this reality into the present and in relation to it, the past, and the future. The perception of the past, the present, and the future is my feeling at the moment. Now, as I live and feel that I exist somewhere in space, impressions are revealed in me, which I divide according to time, place, and motion.

In this case, what is history? Is it memories, informational records of previous states, or a certain perception of the actual reality, called “the past?” It’s very hard to explain that to a person. So I constantly withhold some information, like in a conversation with children who ask intelligent and serious questions, but cannot understand the answer yet.

I don’t want it to seem like mysticism, but there is no “history,” there is no past. Our perception occurs solely due to the informational records (Reshimot). And there is no past in the Reshimo, but only the present. All the Partzufim that seem to come out sequentially, one after the other, like the “historical development” of the world that took place “before we were created” are nothing but our sensation in relation to ourselves.
[60218]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/9/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”: There are two types of relationships: with the Creator and man. And both are destined to lead to the goal: adhesion. A person acting altruistically does not feel any difference in his action between love for his neighbor and love for the Creator since everything outside of his body seems to be unreal in his perception.

So, I exist in an imaginary reality surrounded by other people on planet Earth, in the Universe. Why do I imagine reality to be this specific way? Why am I made to perceive it in this specific form? This is because the falsehood of this “image” absolutely corresponds to the way I deform actual reality. The greater the lie, the further I am from the truth.

And then, being in the current state, I acquire a desire to reveal the essence of life, to understand the reason for living and the meaning of my existence. I want to rise above falsehood and see the truth behind it. If so, one day, my reality will need to change.

How do we achieve it? We want to imagine the true state with the desire that has awakened in us. One cannot manage without the advice of Kabbalists here. We are not able to do anything on our own without their help in evaluating our direction. After all, we are submerged in darkness and confusion, and we do not have even a bit of truth, but a spark of newborn desire. However, this new urge represents only a point, not a vector that could have showed us the path. For this reason, we must turn to the corresponding means in order to head in the right direction.

If I imagine the entire world as myself, as a unified whole, it is a proper image. However, I am not able to form this attitude within me on my own. I am not able to imagine that other people, forces, and phenomena of the still, vegetative, and animate nature are parts of my desire because in my perception, they are depicted as something isolated, separate, and sometimes distanced, opposite, and hateful to me.

For this reason, the method that leads to the truth is the group where I must work. Even though I see my friends as absolutely different and opposite, together, we strive toward a corrected, true state. Together, we must work to make the correction and truth into one.

This is where the need comes from for a proper attitude toward the ultimate, true state called the “Creator” or the group. I will attain the truth only on condition that instead of interacting with the so far imaginary Creator, I interact with a real group, and together, we imagine ourselves to be on the highest degree.

We can handle this work. We advance toward a common, true state through becoming closer to the desires of our friends where we can unite. Then our external actions of becoming closer will bring us to an inner closeness of a single desire.

Our world is a projection of spiritual forces. We perceive them as physical images and create conditions for the unification of our desires, which merge into one by uniting with common efforts on our common path into a single system. We can really begin with nothing, with corporeal, physical actions, even false ones, but productive. One can manage initially without the intention on a low degree. The first chord may be off-key, but it still counts. This is why no one can say that he was not given the reins to take himself to correction.

This way, the relationship between people is more important than the relationship with the Creator. On one hand, I have a small group that wishes to reveal the message, the method of correction. On the other, I have the vast humanity, subconsciously waiting for unity.

In the end, humanity must receive this method from us in a prepared form with strictly described relationship parameters. However, before the crisis and helplessness manifests the real need for unity between people, there is no reason to reveal the method. This is why Kabbalah is concealed.
[60247]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/9/2011, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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A person does not feel what is above reason or below it. If he does not perceive something inside of reason and does not approve of it in his ego as existing and worthwhile, then he does not attach any significance to it whatsoever.

Walking below reason means being under the influence of the society and acting with the reason of others. This is considered unworthy even though we always act precisely in this way since society pressures us and forces us to respect its values.

Walking above reason is something we are not capable of at all because this is called walking by faith. For that, a person has to form upper notions for himself which are above his reason in order to convince him with the force of faith and to accept faith as knowledge. That is, he has to unite with the environment and from it receive the proof of authenticity and value.

It turns out that a person usually acts within knowledge, filling it by virtue of his environment. And it is very difficult for him to rise above that.

Therefore, if we want to accelerate time, this is possible only by walking above reason. After all, if we walk within knowledge then it is simple evolution, the natural course of development. And this takes place until I feel and develop on my own, until I obtain the new knowledge.

However, if I am guided by the opinion of the environment, its knowledge becomes mine. And in relation to my previous knowledge, it is already “above knowledge.” That is, my personal perception turns into the social one.

It turns out that I replace my reason, which accepted only what was approved by my egoistic desire, with the net of connections between myself and others. And the well-being of others becomes the foundation of my reason.

If a person makes this change in his perception, then he exits the bounds of his limitations.
[60221]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/9/11, Writings of Rabash

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Every person reaches a critical point once in a lifetime where he has to leave his parents’ home and start his own life. This is a very sharp and unpleasant transition. There are people who never get used to life’s new demands.

Today, this same transition is global. Until now, nature led humanity forward, enabling it to succumb to childish, egoistic games. We developed in our egoism and didn’t fight ourselves, but now our childhood is over and our adulthood begins.

In the same way that a person reaches adulthood, humanity has ended decades of youth. Our egoism has grown, and now we have to manage in the world on our own.

However, the world isn’t what it used to be. We are in a new global and integral world that is mutually connected, and in which we have to find our place and become a part of. We are not children any more. We have grown.

Of course, humanity doesn’t want that and doesn’t understand it. Just like a person who reaches adulthood and is suddenly faced with endless problems, he must rent an apartment, go to work, take on different responsibilities, and provide for himself everything that others have provided up until then.

Of course, he doesn’t want that. It is much easier and more convenient with mom. It takes time to get used to the grown-up’s world and to find the nice things in it. Humanity isn’t ready yet. It still prefers to dance to the tune of its egoism as before.

We are already in the new world, and we have to adapt to it. It demands our full cooperation and concern for everyone, yet people still want to go on playing like kids. They haven’t experienced enough pain to enter the new reality.

They should be told that the new world demands our full cooperation, that our work is to connect, and that we will solve all our problems only if we create the right mutual connection among us. The entire world is like one person now. Look at it as if looking in a mirror.

If you don’t feel that you are unemployed in certain areas, that natural disasters shock you in other areas, and that still other areas suffer from diseases, look at the general shape of this world. You will see that we have a systematic problem and we all have to be connected to one another, to work together in harmony for one cause, which is general balance.

Imagine that you had some medical tests yesterday and the doctor gives you the results today. It turns out that your body’s organs are not operating in harmony, but rather like children. One does too much, one does too little, and one doesn’t do anything at all.

After all, balance is the right connection among all the body parts and is the basis for feeling good health. So, now you can come to the right conclusion.
[59790]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/4/11, “The Peace”

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There is an ancient materialistic theory about the perception of reality. What do our senses perceive: something that is happening outside of us or within us? This is the problem: It’s one of the two.

By changing the range of our sensors and allegedly perceiving something outside of us, we still observe only a very small part of the whole picture. There are certain ranges in which we are unable to distinguish the vibrations within. It’s feasible that totally different vibrations exist, which are not accessible to the perception instruments that we have developed.

The tools that we have invented to enhance our senses are based on our organs of perception. For example, in order to sense temperature fluctuations, we’ve added adequate sensors to tools already existing. At the same time, in order to better differentiate between certain visual images, we’ve created optical sensors, and so on. However, we are unable to build tools to perceive something that we have never observed due to the lack of appropriate sensors. We are only able to create additional tools that broaden our existing sensors that help us “see” many phenomena better.

This means that in fact we perceive only a very limited part of the external world. Today, it is proven that there is some “dark” matter and some other unclear phenomena. It’s as if we are sensing something, but it is not available to us.

The second theory declares that there is nothing outside of us and that our organs of perception represent a certain type of “contact” between our internal similarities and the external world. According to this theory, a person is a “closed box” within which there exists a desire that constantly senses something. We consider these sensations our life.

In other words, I exist within my desire, which includes you, this studio, everything there is in it, anything I imagine, all my fantasies, ideas, and reminiscences. Everything exists only within my desire, in my brain, and nowhere else. We are “a thing in and of itself.”

I am a follower of the second supposition, although there are many other theories. I am positive that we all exist within ourselves, emerge from our internal desires, and perceive a developmental program that our desire goes through, and this program is in fact our life. At this time, we are acquiring an opportunity to start running this program and consequently, to become able to rule our own life. We can move forward and backward, up and down in any direction, following any coordinates and axis.

Nature allows us to jump to the next ultimate level of realization of the system that we live in. It allows us to understand who we are and what kind of world we live in, whether it’s a dream or a reality, and what the difference between them is.
[59514]
From a TV Program “The Integral World” 10/16/2011

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Question: You say that the desires are broken, but I perceive desire as something whole. What is a “broken” desire?

Answer: The desire to receive for one’s own sake is referred to as “broken.” And the desire directed towards “bestowal” to others is referred to as “corrected” or wholesome. Desire does not break—the screen does.

Desire is always wholesome. If my desire has a screen, and when the Light comes, I am able to pass it on to the others and only keep what I need for my existence, this means that the entire upper Light passes through me to the others. It never lingers in me; it constantly circulates from the world of Infinity to everyone else without exception. Then I feel absolutely fulfilled, and the force of life always circulates in me.

But if I do not have this quality, meaning I don’t possess the screen, the upper Light does not even reach me. It immediately returns back to its source, carrying out the condition of the First Restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph or TA): the Light does not enter the desire to receive without a screen. This is why I feel that I exist “within myself” and not in the Light.

“The thing within myself,” which I am, is called “this world”—that which we perceive for now. “This world” is what I perceive within me.

The upper world is what I feel outside of me, when I connect to the rest. Then I perceive the life of the entire body, and all of the Creator’s Light passes through me to all the rest.

This is why the state when I have a screen, when I am connected with everyone else and pass the Light to them, is called “corrected.” And the state when I do not have a screen is called “broken.” The desire is not broken, the screen is, even though we frequently use the conventional term: “broken desires.”
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From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 10/23/2011

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