Although we exist in the space of the world of Infinity, we are unable to perceive anything of it except for a tiny black point that is unaware even of itself. This is how the Creator made us. And then He started to restrict Himself. As He restricts Himself, we manifest more and more.

The Creator conceals Himself from 100 to zero percent, forming the worlds of Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya, the 125 degrees of restriction, the Creator’s concealment. To this extent, the creature reveals itself and its world more and more, from zero to 100 percent, and this constitutes the degrees of the creature by which it manifests more and more, until it finds itself in our world. Meanwhile, the Creator is concealed.

Now, we have to perform the correction. I have to gradually, step by step, reveal the Creator, meaning to discover Him within myself so as to not be opposite to Him, so that there would be no barrier separating us, so that I would encompass all of His qualities until they enter me, degree after degree.

We can depict it differently: I absorb into myself the properties of the Creator, and they enter inside my point, my Reshimo (informational gene), more and more.

Most important is to adhere to precise definitions. We exist in that same space, in that same place, in the same conditions. From the part of the Creator, the upper Light, nothing changes. Everything depends only on how we incorporate into ourselves His qualities—the qualities of love and bestowal, of expansion and unlimited connection, so that all the properties called love and bestowal that constitute the nature of Light enter us. Then we will sense the state that we truly exist in.

We can’t change anything: We exist in that same place, among the same forces. There is a program that advances us towards development under the influence of great pressures we feel from outside and inside. But we can add to it our own development, to decide that we desire it, and then to develop quickly, nicely, and with joy. This is the entire difference.

Nobody had asked us either in the beginning or in the end of the process, nobody is taking us into consideration—except for that mechanical force that develops us. Indeed, the Creator has no feelings like ours, as it is said: “The law is given and cannot be transgressed.” But we, as sensual and fine creatures, can use this law effectively for it help us to develop quickly, nicely, and easily.

Hence, all we do is reveal a perfect reality—the world of Infinity, the Creator, and it is happening namely in our generation.
[54970]
From the 4th Lesson, Kabbalah Convention in Toronto, 9/16/2011

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Question: I understand why fulfillment is concealed from us, but why are our connections with one another concealed from us?

Answer: Connection and fulfillment are inseparable.

What is the Light? How can we explain what sensation is? Suddenly I feel some kind of vibrations in relation to someone: hatred, love, fear, care. These vibrations did not come from outside, but were born inside of me, inside of my attitude to that person.

They emerge because I establish a special connection with him and work on it. Then, when I connect with him, I feel special impressions, like vibrations inside my desires, sensations, and qualities. This is called Light.

The Light does not come from outside in order to dress into me, but becomes revealed inside of me, in my attitude to someone. It cannot be revealed “out of the blue.” That is impossible. It can only be felt in my connection with someone else, such as when I give him a sensation and he receives it, or vice versa.

There has to be a connection uniting two people, inside of which some kind of vibration or impression is felt, called the Light. It’s like a cord or a tube connecting us that extends from one to the other through which an electrical current flows.

It turns out that the Light is the vessel that feels all kinds of changes inside itself. It’s not the actual Light that changes, but the desires and the impressions experienced in the desires. But no Light comes from outside.

It’s like a vibration of a string that produces the voice of a musical instrument. This is called the Light. Therefore, we have to create love and bestowal inside of us ourselves, and then inside of this love and bestowal we will feel its inner root, called the Creator.
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/20/11, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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When we properly define Kabbalistic terms, we see that Kabbalah isn’t some out-of-this-world science, but that it deals with realistic things: our interrelation and the correction of human nature. It allows us to transform hatred into interconnection and to search for ways to rise above our nature. It also allows us to understand that “God’ is a quality of complete bestowal, and this quality has to reign between us. Instead of sensing only our bodies, which are essentially just bags full of electrolytes, we’ll sense things that exist outside of us.

How will this happen? Simply put, if I direct all of my attention, care, thoughts, and desires outward into the general system, then gradually I gain the ability to sense others. I provide my “animal” with all the necessities, and the rest of me is fully immersed in our interconnection. It’s similar to the way a mother cares for her new born baby: All of her thoughts and feelings are directed at him.

After we reach this state, we are ready to sense the spiritual world. And we really do begin to feel it. That is, we begin to feel things outside of us. Before we only perceived things within our five senses, sensing the world from within. After all, “this world” is drawn on the back of my brain as a reflection of my five senses. In essence, I see myself because I see the projection of my inner qualities. But when the relations between us become more important than my inner sensations, I cross over to an out-of-body perception.

This constitutes the revelation of the Creator or the revelation of the quality of bestowal to a person. One reveals what he has created and built. By exiting himself, a person becomes similar to the Creator or the force of bestowal. A person attains the quality of bestowal to the degree that he builds it, meaning that the Creator reveals Himself according to the level the person has attained. After all, the “Creator” (Boreh) means “come and see.” Come and you will see, feel and measure what you’ve attained.

By perceiving reality and the Creator in this way, we cancel out many stereotypes and preconceptions. We begin to really engage in our inner science in which we are both the researchers and the subjects under examination. We feel the results and become them. We attain the quality of the Creator, which becomes our quality—our adhesion to the quality of bestowal.

Thanks to this perception of reality and to the changes that we must undergo, we completely change our attitude toward pain, suffering, and to the complaints we present to others, to the Creator and to ourselves. We understand that we exist within Nature and that there isn’t anyone to blame. There is no one to search for or hope for someone’s mercy and protection.

There’s only room for a scientific approach: We exist in a system of forces that is subject to precise laws. Kabbalah defines this as follows: “I did not change my Name,” “the upper Light is at absolute rest,” “a judge has only what his eyes can see,” and “the law was given and cannot be transgressed.”

We use the language of emotion and prayer, but if we don’t want to become confused by all this, we must “test the harmony with algebra” and achieve precise measurement of forces, directions and vectors, equations, graphs, and formulas. Only then will we be able to measure our sensations and efforts, our hatred and love both quantitatively and qualitatively through various contrasts. This is the only way we can avoid confusion.

We are sensual creatures, our matter is the desire to receive pleasure. However, we conduct work on ourselves like true researchers. We rise to work above our desires by means of restriction and the screen, and this is called working in faith above reason.

So let’s become comfortable with languages of lyricism and physics. In essence, they both speak of the same things, we only have to avoid becoming confused by them. Then we’ll clearly understand the entire creation.

The science of Kabbalah teaches how to conduct research and create a precise objective language that describes sensations. By doing so, we’ll understand the whole reality and the Creator—the force of bestowal that reigns over the entire reality. We’ll get to know Him completely and then reach the goal.
[54844]
From Preparation Lesson, Kabbalah Convention in Toronto, 9/16/2011

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Mutual guarantee is the only way to counter the blow that nature casts upon us today (if the revelation of the Creator can even be called a blow!). Mutual guarantee will put us in concord with the blow, and instead we will sense it as a positive influence.

If today we connect by ties of mutual guarantee to the degree that we are supposed to, we will sense goodness in this world and will succeed in everything. Baal HaSulam writes in his article “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation” how a person’s outlook changes. We would see healthy people, a blooming economy and industry, and perfect families. There would be no sick, unfortunate, and hopeless people. There would be no use of anti-depressants, no drugs, and no divorces.

Our world would be harmonious and we would only be concerned with achieving an even greater state of harmony with the Creator, with the force of nature, which would reveal itself to us more and more.

We must bring ourselves into correspondence with the perfect system of connections in the shortest amount of time possible. We can’t even imagine yet what a perfect connection means; however, we must achieve it in a short period of time. I can’t even imagine how fast this should unfold—each day will feel like a new life. The changes will be so rapid that people will lose their sense of time.

Today we sense that there is morning and evening; we say things like “come tomorrow,” “in a week,” or “in a month.” However, this will disappear because we’ll lose our sense of time. Time will become a change of states, to the point where people won’t even think in terms of morning or evening. These notions will disappear from their consciousness and time will only be measured through changes taking place within them.

This is how we rise above time and space. All of our sensations will no longer depend on them. We will continue to eat, drink, and do things in this world, but a new mechanism and new attitude will begin to get a hold of us, until this entire world will disappear, and we will smoothly transfer into a new state. The importance of this world will be lost to such an extent that we will simply stop seeing and sensing it.

The extent to which we rise in order to connect to one another is the extent to which this world will begin to disappear.
[54519]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/2/2011, Rabash’s article

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Question: What is the purpose of the circulation of the knowledge of Kabbalah and in what forms should it be carried out?

Answer: There is a reality that we perceive in our desire to receive pleasure, and we cannot disclose it more than we feel it now. There is also a reality that we can apprehend in our desire to bestow. To the extent we desire to bestow we can reveal the upper force, the nature of which is complete bestowal. We can attain only these two qualities.

We perceive our world in our desire to receive pleasure and can develop in it. But essentially, our world is limited by our egoistic desire that absorbs everything “into itself.” Consequently, we discover ourselves existing in a body made of flesh and in the surrounding environment.

Whereas the desire to bestow reveals for us the five worlds and the upper force, where we feel ourselves eternal and perfect like the upper force. But the problem is that in our desire to enjoy we sense a need for this world. Whereas we don’t have any need for the desire to bestow, for the spiritual world, and we have to develop it. Otherwise, we will not be able to attain the spiritual world.

The question is how I can develop a need for something I don’t want, feel, or understand and have no taste for? I don’t have any prerequisites for it; I have never tasted spirituality. What should I strive for?

I can advance towards it by means of problems and blows. But then I will only want to get rid of the blows, to run away from them, pushing or pricking me from behind. And how can I discover good awaiting for me ahead? I cannot see, feel, or taste it.

Thus, we do not have any choice. Blows, suffering, problems, crises, and bankruptcies alone cannot help us: All these impacts will not assist us in reaching spirituality. Therefore, Baal HaSulam states that there should be a preliminary condition for revelation of spirituality—the dissemination of the science of Kabbalah, which is referred to as “the call of the Messiah’s horn.”

I need to disclose to the world that there is something good, pleasant, and worthy that opens everything before you. It should be so attractive that even if I do not feel any lack now, I will suddenly realize that I am missing a different world—the upper one.

How can I get a desire for it? It is possible if I get impressed by the environment that tells me about it. Meaning, I need a good, big environment that “will brainwash me” to such a degree that I will really want something I do not want now. And we can see that the society is able to do it.

Therefore, everything depends on the environment. Otherwise, sufferings will come and will bombard me with blows—until I develop a desire to disseminate and try to disseminate in any case in order to receive an aspiration to move forward. By virtue of this desire I will be able to progress towards the quality of bestowal, towards the spiritual world, and then and only then I will attain it.

Thus, dissemination is an indispensable and mandatory condition for attaining spirituality. In what forms should we disseminate? In any! How can we influence a person? Through all his senses: Let him be impressed, desire, beg, or fear—it could be anything that will make him desire spirituality, as it is said: “I want!” Otherwise, if I don’t wish to advance on my own, only sufferings will come from behind, which is not enough.

We should desire spirituality ourselves and only then we will reveal it. That desire must be complete and reach a full measure called “Seah.” And I can receive it only from the environment. Therefore, you should realize how important circulation is!
[54431]
From the New York lecture #2, 9/12/11

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

Thought. Movement. Time.

Spiritual movement is not movement from place to place. Rather, it refers to a renewal of form since we denominate every renewal of form by the name “movement.”
– Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part 1, “Inner Reflection,” Chapter 9

The spiritual definition of time is only a sensation of movements. Our mind pictures and devises a certain number of movements, which it discriminates one by one and translates them like a certain amount of “time.” Thus, if one had been in a state of complete rest with one’s environment, he would not even be aware of the concept of time.
– Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part One, Inner Reflection, Chapter 9
[52922]

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All of reality is the development of our desire to receive pleasure. It first needs to develop on its own—until it reaches a spiritual degree. And from this point on, we begin to develop in two ways, according to two parallel paths: a left and a right one, always rising above our desire to receive pleasure and working for the importance of the desire to bestow. We do this until we understand that there is no such thing as the desire to receive: Everything that exists is pure bestowal.

It is in this way that we come to a point where there is nothing white, but there is continuous white Light around it, and we begin to do different actions to maintain this white quality. The entire work happens at night in order to separate the nature of the receiver from the nature of the giver and to understand that our desire to receive pleasure is merely the reverse imprint of Light. It is specifically given to us so we will overcome it, rise above this darkness, and build our own reality.

These obstacles to overcome are like school exercises or sports practices which our entire advancement depends upon. And the instructor is good when he has a big reserve of good and appropriate exercises organized in the right sequence, according to the needs of every student. He also knows how to bring a person to correction, meaning to the goal, in the quickest and most efficient way.

Our entire life is a series of exercises that the Creator puts before us, waiting for us to properly react to them every time. And He is a competent judge who never makes mistakes, who knows all our ways and everyone’s foundation. This is why we need to understand that everything we feel, in every moment of our existence, is only intended for the quickest and most efficient attainment of the good and proper goal of our development, till we reach the final perfect state.

This is why we need to justify all of the Creator’s actions over us and all the situations He places before us so that we can practice overcoming and evaluating, thereby establishing a proper attitude. This is our life in every aspect of it.

But when we fail to do an exercise and react the right way, the next stage follows. And if our actions are successful at this stage, we also correct the debt we have left over from last time. All the states at any moment are connected in a chain as causes and consequences: the sensation in the heart and the mind, the perception of reality, the sensation of the past, the present, and the future, and of the entire environment. All these things I paint with my own qualities, like using paints on a canvas of white Light, which I take from the black point, submerged in a white ocean of bestowal.

Everything that exists besides this white Light that I do not yet distinguish, all these things are shades of my qualities. And if I raise them to the level of justifying the One who brings me the current sensations, I will see myself as a black point in the ocean of white Light. And everything else I see besides this is an addition to bring me to the next, higher degree.

And His addition always comes as a sensation of darkness in all the different forms my current reality paints for me. But all these colors are made with my “613” corrupt desires. This is why I see that in all of reality, both corporeal life and inner sensation (the heart and the mind), the Creator always invites me to attain similarity to Him. After all, I have nothing more than one single black point as the foundation that He used to create me “from absence” thanks to the ocean of upper Light.

Spiritual work begins here.
[54025]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/8/2011, Shamati #127

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Rav Kook: “Great spiritual questions that are resolved only for great and outstanding people now have to be resolved on different levels of the entire nation. In order to lower great, lofty things from the height of their grandeur to the depth of the level of the masses, a tremendous wealth of spirit is needed, as well as constant social activity that becomes a habit. Only then will knowledge expand and the language appear enabling deeper things to be expressed in an easy, popular style, thereby returning the afflicted souls.”

The science of Kabbalah really is very concealed and distant from people, even though everything is in one “place”: the worlds and souls, Sefirot, Partzufim, circles, and lines. Everything we study in the science of Kabbalah is in one place, in one state. However, in the perception of the receivers, it becomes revealed according to the law of equivalence of form. Our current qualities determine which part of the perfect reality we are able to perceive.

Today our qualities are egoistic, extremely limited, and restricted. Therefore, we perceive only a tiny portion of the enormous world we are in. And we perceive it through the bodily perception, which is confined by the boundaries of time, motion, and space. All of this limits us tremendously.

Throughout all of history, human creatures were in this state, and only individuals were able to perceive the true reality where “to perceive” means to live it, to exist in the same quality. This is because I live in concordance with the qualities that I am able to develop within. If they are above time, then I am eternal, and if they are immersed inside of time, then my existence is temporary. If my qualities are above space, I feel all of reality from end to end, but if they are closed in on some tiny fragment, then I am inside of it and perceive myself as limited in volume inside of this 3D coordinate system. I am also limited in motion, shifting along the physical axis rather than the time axis.

In short, there are many limitations, and in this regard everything depends on my qualities. We don’t really understand this because we are used to certain qualities that we were born in, grew up in, and now live in. However, if we really change them, then we will transform our reality completely. By perceiving a higher layer of it, we will experience it as infinite, located above time, space, and motion. There, we can live in completely different conditions.

This is why Kabbalah is called the science about reception because with its help, we can receive or perceive a completely different reality. We acquire a certain “regulator” by means of which we can change the axis of time, space, and motion, shifting to other dimensions and times with a slight shift of inner qualities.

All of this is realistic. This capability is present inside of us. We can influence the Light that forms us, and accordingly, it will endow us with various qualities. This mechanism was used by Kabbalists of all generations until our time.

However, today we have found ourselves in a special state where all of humanity is acquiring this capability. An impulse is being born in us to change the current form of existence. We are starting to feel worse and worse in this world and are finding less and less benefits from life in it. We are still holding on to it due to not having any other choice, due to the unwillingness to suffer, but are starting to be more persistent in asking ourselves the question, “What for? Why? What’s the point of this existence?”

Questions and suffering of different levels are pushing us to search. And at the same time, we are revealing an inner capability to control the force that created us to such an extent that we really will change with its help. Then, in this period of time, in this life, in our reality, we will be able to turn the little wheels inside of us and find ourselves in completely different dimensions.

This is what Rav Kook writes about: “Great spiritual questions that are resolved only for great and outstanding people now have to be resolved on different levels of the entire nation.” Anyone is capable of it.
[54417]
From the New York lecture #2, 9/12/11

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

Thought. Movement. Time.

The desire is the root of the mind and not the mind the root of desire.
– Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”

The desire is the “self” of the person, and the thought is the consequence, outcome of the desire.
– Baal HaSulam, Shamati (I Heard), Article No. 153, “The Thought Is an Upshot of the Desire”

The mind is enslaved by and serves the desire.
-Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 21
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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

All Changes Are in the Desire, Not in the Light

All these images and changes begin and end only with the impression of the souls.
– Baal HaSulam, “Preface to The Book of Zohar,” Item 33

There is no change at all in the world of Atzilut itself, whether the lower ones receive its great abundance lushly, or receive nothing at all. The above mentioned greatness lies solely on the lower ones.
– Baal HaSulam, “Preface to The Book of Zohar,” Item 32

When the Light of Malchut descends and expands over the people, it appears to them, to each and every one, according to their own appearance, vision, and imagination, meaning only in the receivers and not at all in the Sefira Malchut herself.
– Baal HaSulam, “Preface to The Book of Zohar,” Item 35
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