While reading The Book of Zohar, one has to understand that The Zohar is not supposed to be processed by the mind. And if a person wishes to figure it out by way of the intellect, he will get tangled in every word since no word in The Book of Zohar points to anything familiar to us.

All of them hint at the spiritual states and properties. If a person is in the same spiritual state or world, he reveals what they are talking about. So, he knows what spiritual properties and definitions are being described; he feels, recognizes within himself this inner, spiritual world. After all, a person reveals the spiritual world inside, rather than outside of himself, as he perceives the entire reality only within.

As to someone who doesn’t possess spiritual perception yet, he is simply reading an unusual text. What are we reading The Zohar for then? We do so in order to add to it an aspiration to reach a state when we will understand, feel, recognize, and even experience all the spiritual states and properties The Zohar is telling about. All that I presently read as an incomprehensible story, I wish to experience inside myself and live in it.

We must cultivate this desire in us. In order to see the spiritual world, we only lack a desire, a yearning for it, and not more. Therefore, now, as we read The Zohar, we must, all together, to the best of our ability strive to reveal this hidden world.

Even though we don’t have a special need for it (since we don’t know what we are reading), we are still reading this text together. Hence, from this very same concealed state, we draw upon ourselves the illumination regarded as “the Light that Reforms,” “the Surrounding Light,” which affects us.

It doesn’t reveal the concealed world, but rather it awakens in us the needs, desires, and properties of perception, new sensory organs, after which the revelation occurs. The Light functions so as to create in us the capacity for sensing the concealed. Hence, we yearn for the Surrounding Light to enable us to feel the hidden world.
[42345]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/2011, The Book of Zohar

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Question: If the Creator created everything as perfect in the first place, why should we correct anything?

Answer: Yes, but we are not yet in the state that He created. We are outside of it, behind all kinds of veils, concealments. These screens have to do only with us since we are the ones who feel concealment.

The Creator created only one state regarded as the world of Infinity. However, in order to feel that we are actually in this Infinity, we need to accumulate all sorts of experiences.

Suppose someone wants to treat me to some exotic dish, but in order for me to really appreciate its taste, I need a desire for it. I am supposed to have an idea of what it is and how it is eaten. Otherwise, I won’t get it, like the farmer mentioned in The Book of Zohar who lived on a farm all his life, grew wheat, and, until he once visited a city, hadn’t even suspected how many delicious things could be made from it. All he had ever known was the rough grain.

So, while being in the Light of Infinity, we feel it only as a donkey does, chewing on the rough grain. Except for the simple “grain” and “water,” we don’t desire anything else. We don’t sense in the Light of Infinity all the delicacies that the Creator has prepared for us.

How then do we start desiring the Light that fills Infinity and feel it in all its manifestations, through its entire depth, with total clarity? We don’t have such a need. We must create it within ourselves.

In order to build up a desire to smell the sweetest pie instead of the rough grain, in order to sense Infinity instead of the minimal Light of Nefesh de Nefesh while being in the same state and the same Light, we need to cultivate desire. Desire grows by way of concealment, when I am shown a little bit of the Light and then it is concealed again, exposed and then concealed. This is regarded as “flirting,” playing.

This is a very serious game since concealment increases desire. This is how the Light is playing with us, by exposing and concealing itself. This is why we withdraw from the world of Infinity and become separated from it by numerous concealments, until we end up in this world, in its total concealment.

All we need is desire. At the instant I do get it, I will receive the precious “pie.” As soon as it grows some more, I will be given an even bigger treat. With every new step, I need to increase my desire, and the upper Light starts illuminating me in full force. My desire opens me for connecting with Him and allows Him to enter me.

The Creator created all of these states from the start, but out of the whole of Infinity, you can feel only the minimal Light of Nefesh right now. It’s because you don’t have a desire of your own to wish specifically for it and to feel pain because you are lacking it.

This desire has to be totally new, unlike your instinctive desire. You receive it by forcing, overriding yourself and struggling with your entire nature. When you start wanting the Light this much, it will be an authentic desire. In other words, you need to wish for bestowal!

At present, it seems to be something totally silly, some strange bestowal and love. However, these are simply familiar words that mean a new type of desire which doesn’t exist in us yet.
[42186]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/4/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Kabbalah is a science about reality. Man is a creature that strives to understand why and for what purpose he exists and how he can come to the truth. He yearns to uncover the meaning of such notions as “truth,” “facts,” “purpose,” or “reaching the goal.” He is made to demand this kind of fulfillment.

Man’s greatest need is to know who he is, as it is said: “From my flesh shall I see the Creator.” Indeed, to learn who I am, I need to know who the Creator is. This necessity mandates me to search.

The entire wisdom of Kabbalah is dedicated to the study of man since besides him, nothing exists. All of reality is within man, and everything occurs solely in him. I don’t see anything in this world except myself. All that is happening around me is me, images within me. I don’t have the slightest idea what is going on outside of me.

This means that Kabbalah is the study of the self, self-attainment, self-awareness. All other books describe some kind of illusions, as if there is an external reality around us. Therefore, everything but these sacred books is a total lie made up by man; they are the fruit of his imagination.

We don’t realize how unique these books are; besides, as far as the truth is concerned, we have nothing to hold on to. Without these books, we would exist in this world as some little insects that live only for as long as the time allotted to them permits. Only with the help of these books can we gradually develop ourselves and start examining, measuring, and learning “who and what we are.”

Thus we find out that we contain the whole worlds, Partzufim, Sefirot, and numerous parts that seem alien to us, which in the end turn out to be the parts of your own soul. This is your very desire split into the still, vegetative, animate nature, and humans as well. And at the last, fourth degree, we must collect all these parts together in order to come to the intention “to bestow,” which is mandatory for this final, fourth, stage of creation.

When I gain this intention to bestow for all parts of creation, I will finally find out who I am; I will know myself. And there is nothing else to study in reality.
[42014]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/2/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Our entire problem is that we do not hear the Creator’s hints. Quietly, the Creator constantly directs us, but we do not feel it. A person has to feel that the Creator is always whispering in his ear.

This is not a psychological problem and not external voices, nor a compulsive thought. This is our inner feeling that must constantly become more sensitive to perceiving the Creator’s voice.

I have to feel this inner voice inside of me, “Is this coming from Him or from me?” If I start perceiving these hints, they will help me very much. One must feel inside how He is constantly talking and hinting.

This won’t be pleasant. I will have to restrain myself and lead myself away from many weaknesses that I have, and sometimes will do the opposite. What can you do about it? A person has to find some way to relax. There are moments like that as well because a person is human.

However, in principle this sensitivity to the inner voice, as it is written, “I heard a voice,” is very important. This is not schizophrenia. It really is a very serious attunement similar to how a musical instrument is tuned in order for its sound to match the tuning fork, the pure note “A.” That is how one must feel: At what frequency can I “pick up” the Creator?

Question: How can we learn to discriminate the Creator’s voice among many others?

Answer: Only by your desire. There is no other way to do it. No one and nothing will help you. At the beginning of the previous century the Kabbalist Hazon Ish wrote the following in his book Faith and Confidence, “The quality of bestowal is a fine movement of a sensitive soul.” This is how he begins his book. We need precisely this fine attunement to the frequency at which the Creator broadcasts.

Question: What is this force that helps us to constantly keep this attunement and discriminate where and in what state I am in? Or does it not matter whether I feel good or bad?

Answer: What helps us to tune ourselves to this “fineness of the soul”? Only movement toward others, when I connect with others in spite of myself and in spite of all of the twists, turns and problems, and I try to tune myself.

All of these twists, turns, and problems are given to me deliberately. They indicate where I am still under-tuned. They show me my deviations from the necessary frequency. All the problems, troubles, and negative things are the expression of how much I am not tuned, that I still haven’t found the right resonance.

If a person perceives everything happening this way, in spite of anything that happens to him, if he does not lose the thought, “There is none else besides Him” and also tunes himself to, “If I don’t do it for myself, who will do it for me?” Then that’s all he needs.

Question: But where does he feel this voice inside?

Answer: In the movement toward the outside. The instrument in which the Creator is felt is a new resonating region inside of you that begins to resonate in relation to others.

This instrument is what we have to create. It is called “a soul.”
[41984]
From the lesson on 4/21/11

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Baal HaSulam, Letter 19: “In the same woman…” “…grace is deceitful and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.” This means that during the preparation, the beauty and grace appear and the essence of perfection that one yearns and longs for. However, at the time of correction, when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,” then, “I shall see an opposite world,” because only fear and longing are the essence of the desired perfection. Then one feels that during the time of preparation, one was lying to oneself.

Question: Why is it said that during the time of preparation we are lying to ourselves?

Answer: It is so because I was longing for something which was a lie. And while suffering, I didn’t realize that this suffering was indeed fulfillment. It means that as soon as I change my attitude toward the desired, I discover that I am in the world of Infinity. It is regarded as “you will eat what is old.” I reveal an infinite fulfillment in my present state.

It is described that previously you were lying to yourself, thinking that you don’t have the desired fulfillment and you need to achieve it. But you don’t have to achieve anything except for the correction of your desires. You are already in the same perfect condition and only cannot see it since you lack the properties of perception, the corrected desires.
[41874]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/1/2011, Baal HaSulam’s Letter 19

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Rabash, Shlavey HaSulam (Steps of the Ladder), Article “The Torah Is Called the Middle Line”: One must have faith that there is “None else beside Him,” meaning that only the Creator compels him to do righteous deeds. But since he has not yet merited knowing that he is compelled by the Creator, the Creator clothes in other people [who as though exist outside of a person] and carries out these deeds with their help.

We think that we are surrounded by lots of people, that they influence us in a variety of ways, and that we must react to them. But if we begin to relate to them (“them” meaning the group of people studying Kabbalah, and not the whole outside world) as the Creator’s manifestation, His presence between us, His presentation to us, then as we unite in the group, we begin to study and attain Him.

One must have faith that behind the human images stands the Creator and carries out all the deeds in people.
[41847]
From Lesson 8, WE! Convention 4/3/2011

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When we enter the spiritual space, we embrace other souls. Otherwise, I simply cannot enter the spiritual world since it isn’t some fenced area that I can walk into through a door.

Only if I unify with the others into one system and feel reality not just personally, individually, but as the integral life of the system where we are connected together, the friends and I, by having become one man with one heart, can I start perceiving more details in it, through additional organs of perception besides my own. Most importantly, I feel it through our common desire, the common spiritual vessel that we are building together and which includes us all.

It isn’t simply a sum of our desires, but rather a totally new property that is regarded as the property of bestowal. It is this property through which I start feeling another dimension, the upper, spiritual one.

It isn’t just certain supplementary details and peculiarities that each of us can see differently, nor is it an exchange of our personal impressions. It is one common impression, but it derives from bestowal, from the sensation of the Creator’s actions. We perform the acts of bestowal, that is, we repeat His actions!

You begin to feel what it’s like to be the Creator, and for this reason spiritual attainment is unlike material attainment. And although the system that you have built isn’t “divine” but comprised of our souls, it still has a special design, the integration of souls in love, mutual reciprocity and guarantee above their initial ego, evil nature, hate, and repulsion. And the difference between the first and the second properties is what creates the space, the new dimension inside which we start experiencing actions regarded as “bestowal.”

In other words, you have built within, inside your desires and qualities, a model of the Creator that helps you understand what He is. Previously, you simply looked at this world and saw some creation without having the slightest idea about it. But now that you are approaching it, you find the Creator inside this creation since you are assembling His image from your own parts, from all souls.

In the end, you discover such a great number of details that you reveal in this world what was previously hidden in it. You see that the Creator’s actions were concealed in it.

You keep delving deeper, to the extent that you can attach a greater number of parts (souls) to your system and link them closer together, until all individual souls, with their personal view of the world, unify as one soul, one desire, regarded as Malchut of the world of Infinity. There, in their connection with one another, in all its smallest details, the individual souls come to a personal feeling and attainment which completely matches the upper force, the root that created collective attainment from which we started on our path.

It turns out that as a great number of particulars connect, you move on to the collective attainment which is extremely detailed and extensive. Through every soul and all of them at once linked together, you attain the Creator, the spiritual world. And it is you who is constructing Him since there is no Creator without the created being! This is why He is named “the Creator” (Bo-Reh), “come and see.”

Indeed, the key here is the work of the system. From the “matter” given to us, we build the “bricks” of the souls that each of us puts into the common system, while rising above our personal hate, egoism, repulsion, and at the same time preserve all our unique characteristics. Thereby, we create a very powerful system of our personal attainment.
[41769]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/29/2011, Writings of Rabash

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We exist in a sensation of life regarded as “this world.” It is the lowest, smallest, and worst world out of all, yet it is some kind of life, and we generally understand what it is. But how do we get into the particulars, meaning the upper worlds, and begin ascending them?

It can only be done if we desire to climb the rungs of these worlds in order to exalt and glorify the Creator. We need all these worlds for a single purpose: so that through them we are able to realize our bestowal, the love of others. In this case, instead of the common, superficial outlook of man experiencing himself in “this world,” we will be permitted to get into all the details and thereby climb the 125 steps of personal spiritual attainment.

Every peculiarity you wish to experience, attain, and see in these spiritual worlds requires that your efforts have the right aim and that the revelation that you will eventually receive is solely for the benefit of the others or the Creator (which is one and the same). Otherwise, why should you dig into all these details, for your own personal gratification? It’s impossible because spiritual pleasure is pleasure from bestowal rather than from receiving for oneself!

Therefore, to move from the general to the particular attainment in this world implies great aspiration and an opportunity to fulfill oneself ever more, to see something interesting not from afar but to personally engage and participate in a certain process. Clearly, there is a big difference between being an outside observer and being at the center of events, which brings much greater gratification.

Likewise, in a personal spiritual attainment, you also have an opportunity for greater bestowal, and to the degree that you are ready for it, this personal attainment will be revealed to you. Hence, a person who desires to see not just the general picture, “this world,” but also all the particulars, first, all the smallest details of creation and the Creator’s acts must become equipped with the intention “to bestow.”
[41773]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/29/2011, Writings of Rabash

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I perceive the image of reality exclusively through the prism of my egoistic desire. It seems that there is a certain reality outside of me. As for me, I feel as being a solid body occupying a certain volume.

I am being affected by heat and cold, gravity, wind, waves, and many other factors. Thus, I feel a certain reality outside of me, albeit only when its effects manifest on my body. The source itself is out of my reach. Right next to me, there could be a doomsday going on, but if it hasn’t dropped into my field of view, I don’t perceive it. Who knows how many dimensions surround me and what grand events are taking place in them? I simply don’t have receptors for it.

I live in my reality, among multiple other realities existing parallel to each other. Similarly, two waves pass through one another without any contact since they are transmitted in different ranges. So do I, among multiple worlds, live in my world, in the part of the whole I am able to perceive.

But a moment arrives when I start feeling my world as narrow and small. I suffer living in it. And then I am brought to a group, a guide on the path, and the instructions and books so that I may experience all the other worlds which I do not yet perceive despite the fact that I am in them. All in all, this wisdom is called Kabbalah, the science of perception, sensation, and revelation.

The reality of creation on the whole is the upper force, the Creator. How do I reach it if I don’t feel it? To do so, I am told to make efforts to gradually develop my sensory organs. Otherwise, I won’t be able to work with them. I have to learn to control and manage them so that I could later explore the enormous external reality with their help.

How do we do it? Kabbalists tell us: “We discovered that it can be done by way of exercises if you practice them within the framework of your relations with the friends. They don’t sense the wide reality either, but you can start playing a game among yourselves. Begin to unite, care about each other, build up a society where everyone will motivate the others to bestow, love, and reciprocate.”

It is similar to your rising above your egoism, and even though in reality it’s all just a game and you are moved by the ego, still, the very efforts will develop new tendencies in you. Due to these new impressions, you will advance. Even if bestowal and oneness are out of reach, keep playing, act in this small world of yours.

What do we need this for? You need it in order to feel the lack, to sort out what you have and what you are missing. These new details of perception will create a certain attitude in you, and you’ll discover that you are saturated with new sensations meant specifically for the new dimension. You will suddenly realize that it’s truly possible to exist not in your world that is absorbed in receiving and consumption, but rather in the enormous outer worlds where everything is the other way around.

What does “the other way around” mean? How can I experience it? You will feel it namely by playing among yourselves. Then everyone will feel that there is a certain property outside of them, a property directed toward the others. Even if you still approach it egoistically, like children when they play their games of being race car drivers, pilots, or cowboys, which develop them, so do you advance in your life.
[41154]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: If a person is raised in religion from childhood and filled with the notion that there is only the Creator, why do people believe in all kinds of impure forces?

Answer: How can you believe in the Creator when you have never seen or otherwise sensed Him? What can you ask of a person who believes in second-hand stories? One person has one story to tell, another has something else, but neither of them has seen anything with their own eyes, and neither have I. There cannot be blind faith!

This is why the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks only of actual attainment, as it is said: “A judge has only what his eyes can see.” And by no means can we deviate from this principle.

We must know the Creator by revealing Him, not by believing in Him. Kabbalah says that there is some higher reality that we don’t perceive, which is still concealed from us. We know that looking at the world with nearsighted eyes you can only see a few feet in front of you, but with glasses you can see a mile away.

Similarly, there is another opportunity to infinitely expand our perception (vision, understanding, sensation) and also to add new qualities, to reveal new dimensions. All of this is possible. We accept this as a hypothesis, just as in science. We believe the Kabbalists that if we do certain actions which they speak of, we can achieve this new level of perception: achieve attainment, enlightenment, and sensation. The method is not about blind faith.

I have faith in the method; that is, I accept it with a question mark so that I could test and actualize it in practice. And then I see that the method is very logical, that it clearly explains to me how I can use the environment so that it changes me; I realize how I need to act with respect to the forces that exist in nature.

I believe only when I see that the method gives the desired result, though the actions themselves are clear and obvious. The notion that I can use the environment to work against my egoistic nature, to achieve a quality that’s opposite to it, is quite realistic. This is called “faith in the sages,” when I follow their advices.
[41636]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/27/2011, Shamati No.1

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