Kabbalists, who explore the upper reality, explain to us that we started our entire evolution in the world of Infinity, Ein Sof, where we were all tied together as one man with one heart, into one point—that’s how strong our bond was. This bond was initially sustained by the force of the upper Light that controlled and fulfilled us.

But later on, we started to descend from this world of Infinity since our connection began to weaken. Between us, distance was formed, which kept growing (the worlds of Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya in the drawing below), until we fell to the level of our present existence, the lowest degree of the world of Assiya.

This descent signifies that under the impact from Above, we gradually lost the Light that filled the space between us. The Light kept decreasing intentionally, on its own, and in the end, distance emerged between us. While in the world of Infinity we were all tied together, by the time we reached the world of Assiya we became withdrawn from each other at a great distance. Now we experience ourselves as two separate realities: yours and mine. Our ego, which rules us, is responsible for the gap that divides us. This is how everyone of us feels.

Now there are seven billion of such alienated egoistic-individualists in our world. But it’s true that in the world of Infinity we existed as one man! And in accord with our sensation, reality has changed as well since we experience it as the sensation in our desire, in our properties.

But we have to understand that we are dealing with two big discrepancies: the reality we feel and the reality where we, in fact, exist. We feel very alien from one another, far from perfection, eternity, and endless fulfillment, somewhere on the outskirts of the entire creation, in this transient world. And yet, the connection between us remains, and it is very strong. We are still tied by the mutual guarantee, as the same one man with one heart.

We simply don’t wish to follow these conditions, and that is the only problem. But nature mandates for us to be connected nonetheless. It’s just that this connection is revealed to us not at the level of the law in the world of Infinity, but in the extent that we have withdrawn from it.

In other words, we are not presently expected to meet all the conditions of guarantee that govern the world of Infinity in which we were absolutely connected with all our desires as one whole and there was only one soul in the center of all creation. We only need to understand that we remain tied together, you and I, and that there is a connection between us.

These ties exist between all of the souls who in the past were together but are distanced today. But we all have a need to return to the center we came from.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/2011 on Mutual Guarantee

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As we return to the world of Infinity from the place on the edge of the universe, where each of us has been cast, and approach the center, we feel an increasingly greater closeness with others. And so it is until we come back to Infinity. This means that we return to carrying out the law of unity and mutual guarantee in a greater and greater degree, along the 125 rungs of connection, everyone’s dependency on all.

A person starts discovering this integral and desired interconnection and, accordingly, feels the Light that fills him within. After all, he became similar to the Light, and the property of bestowal fills him now. And then he begins experiencing the spiritual world.

All this space on his path to the world of Infinity is regarded as the spiritual world because it can be perceived only in the extent of one’s unity with the others. All reality left behind this sensation is regarded as this world since that’s how one feels it when he breaks the ties with all the rest.

In other words, there are two types of reality. In one, we wish to withdraw from all others and therefore feel this material world. And if we gravitate to the opposite side, wishing to bond with them instead, we experience the spiritual world.

The law of mutual guarantee is the supreme law of all creation; it is timeless and mandatory for its every part. All the still, vegetative, and animate nature obeys it instinctively, following the inner call, under the influence of the embedded genes and nature’s forces. And the same pertains to man at the preliminary stages of his development when he carries out the law instinctively within.

And only when a person comes to the “speaking” level of development does he start receiving properties that do not blindly abide by this law. A person must accept this law willingly and start following it.

First of all, a person needs to discover this law, study it, and learn to desire to follow it, ask for ability to follow it, meaning ask to be transformed by the Light that Reforms. And when this Light descends to him, he accepts the conditions of the mutual guarantee and willingly starts following, sensing, and keeping them, thereby discovering one unified soul, the mutual bond.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/2011 on Mutual Guarantee

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Question: How can we build a model of the global, integral world inside of us?

Answer: Imagine yourself connected with the group. Thanks to that you will be able to form a small, compact Kli inside of you that is global, integral, and unified.

Then you will understand what the real world is. It isn’t seven billion miserable people who don’t know where to perch themselves, but their interconnection. You will discover that you clearly distinguish all parts of the world through your small Kli, like through glasses. You can measure the distances between them, compare their colors, and recognize faces….

How did this happen? It’s because your Kli, your instrument, is inside in front of your mind’s eye, but through it you see deep into the entire world. You build this small Kli into yourself, which is the group that you are connected with, and this is enough to see the true world and its inner interconnection.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/11

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Kabbalists are scientists who study nature that exists above the limitations created by our physical body, meaning above the limits sensed in our egoistic desire. In this desire we feel a certain reality we call this world, in which we exist.

However, if a person has the opportunity, the aspiration, and the means to obtain the desire to bestow, through this desire he begins to sense a new reality, as it is said: “I saw a reverse world.” Then a person senses two realities: He continues to sense the old world in his desire to receive, and he perceives an additional, new world in his desire to bestow.

The egoistic desire has a certain time frame of existence within a person, and while it’s there, a person senses life in this world. The desire undergoes three stages: conception, nurturing, and adulthood (Ibur–Yenika–Mochin). The desire grows through these stages and then gradually weakens, until it disappears completely.

These stages determine the sensation of our life: birth, childhood, and adulthood. A person lives his life, then grows older, and dies. One feels death because he can no longer feel anything in his desire to receive.

However, life within the desire to bestow isn’t as temporary as the corporeal life. In it we receive an unlimited perception of reality. It doesn’t depend upon our desire to bestow since bestowal is directed “outward,” unlike the egoistic desire that’s directed inward. This is why we always have the opportunity to develop. Our desire to bestow never runs out or dies because it continues to expand without any limitations.

For this reason, a person senses an eternal life within the desire to bestow. And because this fulfillment never ends, but on the contrary, becomes greater, such existence is called eternal and perfect. But in order to become familiar with this state, one must first carry out a course of actions to acquire the desire to bestow, in which he will sense his spiritual life.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/2011 on Mutual Guarantee

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The Creator initially creates a perfect being. However, in order for it to realize and feel where it is, it first needs to live through various sensations and impressions in order to learn, sense, and examine the state created by the Creator and see that it is perfect for itself.

Hence, the state itself doesn’t change. The Creator is good and does only good, but in this perfect condition, we undergo multiple tests and assessments that aid us in understanding and feeling more correctly the depth of all the good that the Creator prepared for us.

This defines the entire process we undergo, all our experiences at the intermediate stages of this path to awareness. It is not our state itself which changes, but rather our perception, the revelation of this perfection. We start to understand more and more where we are and what is happening to us, until we learn what our authentic state is.

When our real state becomes revealed to us, it is regarded as spiritual birth. Later on, we go through 125 rungs of becoming conscious of it. When the impressions of this path accumulate and gather in us mentally and emotionally, we will finally realize the state we were in from the beginning, with only one difference: We have transformed ourselves, our perceptions, and have become able to feel this perfection.

On this path, we undergo two stages. First of all, we attain that we are unable to experience this benevolent state, and that is why we call it evil. In reality, there is no evil, no egoism, and nothing which would be against the Creator. The only problem is my inability to recognize and sense the Creator, the Light, so I call it evil.

My egoism involves the same very properties in my feelings and mind which do not allow me to perceive goodness present in my state. I constantly want to come to adherence with the Creator, but I can’t due to my undeveloped feelings and thoughts which are precisely what I call evil, the ego.

This first stage, where I get to know my evil and rise above it, is regarded as the transformation “to bestow in order to bestow,” the degree of Bina. It is my evil that aids me in ascending.

When I finally rise above it, I begin to transform evil into good, that is, to “receive in order to bestow,” at which point I employ my ego in its reverse form, relative to the one that had previously unfolded in me. This means that I have risen over the “angel of death,” freed myself from it, and am now learning absolute love, the degree of Keter (Crown).

Thus, the stages of my development are the levels of revelation. First, I reveal my evil, or the properties that don’t let me feel love, and then I use it correctly. Hence, I am always grateful for the fact that it’s not evil, but a mere revelation of lack of feelings and understanding in my mind and heart, which does not allow me to attain good in its perfection.

Evil just helps me see where I lack receptivity, oneness, and similarity to the Light. Therefore, I always view the unfolding of evil as discovering an ailment, a symptom, which shows where I need to be reformed in order to ascend along all the 125 rungs and reach the state of perfection.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/2011 on Evil

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Question: To what extent do our thoughts, intentions, and ability to focus during the lesson depend on everyone who studies with us around the world? Is there such a global interconnection?

Answer: What does interdependence entail? If I view the entire reality as parts of my soul, then I am totally independent. These parts of mine awaken solely to the extent of my attitude toward them, my desire to awaken them.

I don’t focus on their external behavior, but rather awaken them from within, and at the same very level of inner connection, with that they awaken me in response. Everything is determined by my outlook on the world: Either I view it as a material reality with lots of corporeal bodies, or as the earthly desires of men, or as the body of my soul, its Partzuf (structure).

In the latter case, I see not the external images which seemingly exist in the corporeal world, but rather the parts of my soul, which I must transform. “I” is the focal point of my thought, intention. “I” is the intention which I must add to these desires and properties to aim them correctly.

What does it mean that I depend on and get awakened by the others? As I awaken them, I awaken myself in response. This awakening seemingly passes through the external system, while the system is mine nonetheless.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/2011, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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Question: Humanity cannot connect the ecological catastrophes to the correction of egoism. How can we explain this connection to people?

Answer: We have to look for ways to do it and try to write articles and formulate explanations precisely during times of disaster in order to convey the essence: All of this is happening because we are not corrected.

The external world is a mold of our inner state. Therefore, in reality we are talking about inner catastrophes that we only perceive as external. All the nations are parts of one soul, but in our sensations they are divided parts that seem foreign.

It’s as if I have been given an injection of  local anesthesia and now I don’t feel how my leg is burning or how my arm is being cut off. Right now it sounds funny, but that is what is happening.

Therefore, I want the sensation of belonging to gradually come back to me. I want to feel the “external” parts as my own. I hope to receive the opportunity to correct my state, my attitude to others.

If the external reality really will become a part of me, then I will feel a horrible sensation. Therefore, together with the discovery of the illness I have to receive the medicine, the opportunity to improve my state. This is what I am asking for: the medicine together with the illness that becomes revealed. Then I will be able to correct the flaws in myself, and as a result, the “external” cataclysms will settle down.

This is what we have to do: Ask for inner correction which will evoke the correction that seems external. Then we will see all the problems in ourselves and will correct them in us. These desires (Kelim) will unite with us, will become inner, and all the natural disasters evoked by our inner lack of correction will cease.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbaalh Lesson 3/13/11

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The picture of the “external world,” as Baal HaSulam writes, is created by the “camera” in the reverse side of our brain, which projects my qualities onto what seems like the external screen, with those qualities being flawed or corrected to various degrees. Inside of me they exist in the form of different forces. By combining or dividing in different ways, they form the vessel of my soul.

However, I am unable to distinguish these forces because they are projected onto the screen of my consciousness in a way that enables me to see them. Therefore, I see various forms of the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels. All of these forms are in motion, undergoing changes, and this is what enables be to maintain a connection with my inner forces.

How, then, can I attain the right state? It can be done by the principle of loving your neighbor as yourself. You have to make all of the “external” reality become yours. After all, it really is you, but in your deceptive perception it appears as something external. So come back to yourself, return this external picture inside, turn your view from the projection to the “camera.” How can you do that? By bringing your parts closer to you and feeling them as yours.

For now we perceive the world’s problems as disasters happening to other people. In contrast to this, Rabash was very worried in these cases because he felt that the disaster was happening to him. A person who moves towards equivalence with the Creator inclines the whole world toward the cup of judgment or the cup of justification. Therein lies the solution to the problem.

Thus, due to the spiritual breaking my perception divides into internality and externality, myself and the world. By correcting myself, I bring all of the reality which seems external to me closer to myself in order to feel it inside of me. Then I shift to a spiritual perception of the world: There is nothing on the outside. Everything is inside of me and takes place inside of me. There is nothing outside of me. I live in my Kli and only a “camera” creates the external picture for me.

Based on this we must decide once and for all that precisely the people who have received an awakening from above, a drive to become corrected, are the ones able to change the world by changing its perception in their sensations. Everything depends on how much they try to bring the whole world closer to them in order to feel it as an inseparable part of them. This is the realization of the principle of loving the neighbor as yourself. We have to bring all the levels that appear external to us, including the still, vegetative, animate and human levels, closer to ourselves and see them as an inseparable part of us.

Therefore, our attitude to all of reality must be at least the same as to ourselves, although Baal HaSulam explains that I must elevate the desires of others above my own desires. Being an egoist, I think about myself instead of my neighbors. But when I am an altruist, I have to think about others inside of myself.

That is why the world’s correction depends precisely on the people who have received from above a call to correct themselves, to the truth. No one else felt this awakening and therefore they have nothing to demand.

That means we must feel responsible for all the disasters of humanity. And it is in our power to correct them—and not just after the fact, but even before all the bad occurrences take place. We have to make sure that this won’t happen on the still level as well as all the other levels, until the human degree.

For now the catastrophes are manifesting in the form of natural disasters on the still and vegetative levels (such as tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, and fires), as well as in human society in the form of the economic crisis and so on. However, other forms are also not exempt, similar to the Egyptian plagues which were very unpleasant, much more dangerous, and horrible to the sensations than those occurring now.

It is incumbent on us to perform corrections and prevent the world’s problems. Baal HaSulam writes about this for us in the end of the "Introduction to the Book of Zohar." All of the world’s suffering is caused by the fact that Israel does not correct itself in time, with “Israel” (which means straight to the Creator) being every person, regardless of origin, who has the opportunity to correct himself because he has been awakened from above. And it doesn’t matter what level he is on.

This way, every one of us and all of us together are responsible for what is happening.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/11

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Question from Japan: What are the reasons for the disaster that is happening to us? According to the forecasts there are more quakes ahead for us. Can all of us prevent these events here and in the whole world?

Answer: In order to answer this question we must first understand where we are. We are in a “round” world. This is what the science of Kabbalah explains to us in its section on “perception of reality.”

Let’s not wait for painful proofs of this fact to become expressed in our world. By way of painful experience we are discovering that we are all interconnected, that the world is global and integral in which there is a butterfly effect, and so on. Let’s not have to learn the lessons from disasters that will constantly occur in order to convince us of this. Let’s instead learn from the science of Kabbalah.

By the time our life experience starts working, it may be too late. How many more tsunamis, earthquakes, and other disasters have to happen for us to get smarter? Let’s instead turn to science and wisdom. It is written, “The one who learns is wise.” So what does the wise person learn?

We know from the science of Kabbalah that all of reality is felt inside of us because it is inside of us. My perception divides into five levels. Three of the levels are my inner sensations: root, soul, and body. They “clothe” into me from inside. Besides this, there are external details of perception which I perceive on the outside, outside of me: clothing and castle. This is the entire world outside of me. Clothing is everything inside the area that my body or senses can reach, while castle are the far away, unattainable things, or in other words, the things not subject to my control.

That is how reality is divided. Its inner part is called Galgalta ve Eynaim while the external part is called AHP. This division was caused by the spiritual destruction, which is the reason why we only slightly feel the Galgalta ve Eynaim inside of us and have no sensation at all that AHP is also part of us. That is how we will divide our reality until the very end of correction when Galgalta ve Eynaim will unite with AHP into the whole ten Sefirot.

From here we must draw the following conclusion: We feel everything inside of our Kelim. These may be a tsunami, the earth, or the universe with all its stars and galaxies. Everything is inside of me, in my egoistic desire. That is how my desire is built so in it I perceive reality divided in two: “me” and “outside of me.” “Me” is Galgalta ve Eynaim, the root, soul, and body, while “outside of me” is AHP, clothing and castle, the two external categories of perception.

Various changes take place in my inner and outer Kelim. Looking at natural disasters, it is very difficult to understand why these painful events are taking place in the external Kelim rather than the inner Kelim. Why do these changes influence a specific part of my soul today, called “the Japanese people”? Why did the catastrophe befall them of all people?

My soul also includes others parts which I perceive as my friends. In reality, they do not exist by themselves, but as parts of me in my eyes. It will be so until I complete my perception and then everything will unite into one whole, into a single desire, welded and entirely aimed at bestowal. This is the corrected form.

Without viewing reality from these positions, we will never be able to correctly perceive what is happening, including wars, catastrophes, corruption, or anything else. We will never be able to justify the Creator or understand how everything is moving in the direction of correction.

However, we won’t be able to manage without having the right perspective of things, without having a picture of the “round” world that is inside a person and depends on his correction. There is nothing outside of me. Everything is me. This is my earth, my earthquake, my Japan, my Libya, my Israel, my planet, and my universe. And all of it reflects my qualities, which are not corrected yet.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/11

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Our entire work is in revealing an inner ability to perceive the true reality where we exist. Reality is permanent and eternal, and the only thing we lack are the senses to recognize, feel, imagine, and reveal it.

But to do this, one needs to possess the proper desires, the spiritual vessels (Kelim), he himself has prepared within. And the preparation happens in two stages: The appeal for the correction of desire, the prayer (MAN), comes first, followed by the reception of Light from Above (MAD), the upper force that comes and corrects us.

We need to sense within both the prayer (MAN) and the response to it (MAD) in all their actions because they specifically build the organs of perception within us that will enable us to reveal the Upper Light, the Creator. This is why it is written: “It is impossible to attain anything without the force of a prayer.” This is because we need to consciously go through this process, with our own desire preceding it.

But the question is where do we get the proper desire for the revelation of the Upper Light, the Creator, an opposite quality that we are absolutely not prepared for? How do we ask for and want something like this?

We already seem to want spiritual development and to search for a way to advance, but in most cases, we discover ourselves to be in absolute darkness and fog, as if we have waken early in the morning and were unable to understand what is happening to us: Where do we come from, what is our purpose, and what we are to think and want? I open the book or listen to the lesson, and nothing responds within. How am I to prepare and direct myself in the right way, at what expense? After all, a prayer must be suffered, it must be my true desire, coming from the very depth of my heart.

And here we need to understand that our entire work consists of preparing the conditions for a fast emergence of Reshimot (informational genes). To do this, one needs to try to create proper conditions for him: organize the study, participate in dissemination, have a connection with the group, receive the influence from the environment. This is because only a strong influence of the environment will help accelerate the emergence of Reshimot from concealment, from the breaking.

When we join an environment like this, we attract the general Light through it, and it begins to influence us, like the ground influences the grain in it. And when this grain feels the ground’s influence on it, it begins to awaken to life.

Our grain is already planted in the ground and all the necessary Reshimot, their entire chain, are implanted in us. Our objective is only to awaken this ground around us so it will start influencing us. The only thing expected of us is to properly and intensely operate, taking advantage of all the opportunities.

It turns out that my prayer is not directed straight at the Creator; it is as if there is no one to pray to since I don’t know who He is. A prayer begins with properly placing oneself under the influence of the given conditions. And once I am in this environment, I, together with everyone else and my aspiration for spiritual development (my Reshimo), turn to the force that influences the “grain” from the “ground,” meaning my Reshimo through the environment.

This is the force that I want to awaken, and my proper prayer is directed towards it. And remember that the Upper Light, the environment, and the Creator are in an immutable state and at rest. A person activates all these means and uses his desire to launch this entire system so it will start working with him. Otherwise, it will remain in a frozen state of anticipation.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/9/2011, What is Prayer?

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