There are two types of prayer. The first prayer (MAN) is in order to be incorporated in the AHP of the upper, which is the group that is connected in one whole. GE of the lower are incorporated in the upper when I enter the group, as if in a womb, and it operates on me and provides me all the care that I need, making me feel that there is nothing that I lack.

There are systems that take care of me inside this womb. I don’t need to think about anything except for how to be absorbed inside this womb. The 3 days of conception are the main thing.

By my desire to be incorporated in the upper, I evoke it and force it to attain greatness. I turn to the whole group and thus understand that there is no way I can succeed by myself. So I evoke the group and call it: Let’s receive the Light, the force, the corrections from the Creator, that will be revealed in us. But He will be revealed in order to establish the connection between us and to develop this connection. It’s as if we operate our incubator, and I ask for it together with all the others.

The first MAN is my private prayer by which I am incorporated in the group. The second MAN (prayer) is the general MAN, when we turn to the Creator as a group and the Creator already begins to reveal Himself. The response for the second MAN is immediate—MAD.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/13, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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In the wisdom of Kabbalah, the concept of “love” is common and very important. Since the days of Abraham, who wrote The Book of Creation, love accompanied the teaching that was given as the Torah to Moses. Secretly, it accompanied the following eras of the prophets and the scriptures, was reflected in The Book of Zohar, and came the entire way. Later, the concept migrated to Hassidism from Kabbalah even before it began to be revealed to the world as science.

However, it is still unclear to us because it is completely related to bestowal or rather, to mutual inclusion, to unity. In this way, the receiving desire annuls itself, obtains the ability to feel the desire of the other, and then it can work in a new way: fulfilling the desires of the other.

To make the friend’s desire my own, I need to be cleansed, that is, to transfer part of my desire to the state of Hafetz Hesed (HH) and subject everything else to self-annulment, the first restriction (Tzimzum Aleph – TA). In this case, I really include the friend’s desire into myself and can correct him. To do this, I raise our collective desire and request such a force that will allow me to satisfy his needs.

In this situation, I am called the “first-born who takes twice.” After all, I have a double request (x2). I request the force of fulfillment, sufficient to fulfill him as well.

It is possible to imagine this scheme differently in the form of three steps. Being in the middle, I go down (1), adopt the friend’s desires (2), raise his and my desires (1 + 2) upward (3), and get a response (4), the force produces a Zivug, and I give the friend what is necessary (5).

This is the “revolution” that we are realizing today: We address a wide audience, assimilate people’s desires, raise them in the center of the group, and from there to the upper upper one, and then we get a response which we use for bestowal.

So, these actions of mutual inclusion in each other are called “love.”

How does it differ from the state of Hafetz Hesed? In this state, I do not “interfere” with the other;  let him remain the way he is. I don’t make the slightest movement toward him. Like a gentlemen, I just follow the principle, “Do not do to others what is hated by you.”

On the other hand, love means that I want to give him fulfillment. By being included into him, I want to benefit him. With all my heart, I want to bestow to him so he will feel good.

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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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MAN is a prayer, an act, that comes from desire not from the mind. It is born by the desire of Bina and Malchut acting together. We need to raise this prayer, that is, decide that this is the most important for us. This is called “raising.”

After all, the entire scale of measurement is inside me. Plenty of various demands—desires, which I somehow sort by priorities, considering some more important and some less important—live within me. However, above all, there should the force of unity within which I want to reveal the Creator to bring Him joy.

If I arrange all my actions, desires, and impulses so that this unity has become the most important, this means that I raise MAN. That is, I put the need for unity, correction, and revelation of the Creator (for His pleasure) as the most important, above all. This is called an “ascent.”

I do not send this requirement by mail or via SMS to a distant star. All the worlds are inside a person. There, everything starts, is realized, and ends in his consciousness. That is why I need to organize myself so as to arrange all my desires along one line, according to the clear scale of priorities, strictly material: food, sex, family, wealth, honor, and knowledge, and those that are slightly disconnected from this world. At the very top of this ladder of priorities, there must be my desire to bring pleasure to the Creator through our connection by giving Him the opportunity to be revealed in us now.

MAN is “Mei Nukvin” (female waters). Water is Bina and the woman, Nukva is Malchut. Thus, I join Bina and Malchut in a prayer; in other words, I glue the desires together, parts of Malchut, with the water, mercy (Hesed), the property of Bina. I want it to exist in this form together. I raise this request and want to become connected with others through the property of mercy, Bina, the property of bestowal.

That is why my request is called female waters, MAN. I raise it. That is, I consider it above all in importance, and, if I try to keep this desire in my heart by all means to awaken it in its very depth, then it is called a prayer, raising MAN.

To the extent of my efforts to accomplish this, the Light that Reforms affects me and awakens various states in me: thoughts and feelings in favor of connection and against it, in favor of bestowal and against it. In this way, they try to shake me and navigate me through various states so that I understand, feel more, gain experience. Thus, I gradually become aware what the true prayer, MAN, is.

On this path, I must go through frustration, impatience, fear of not succeeding, and failure to understand what kind of success I am waiting for: for myself or to please the Creator. Here it helps to imagine, the entire universe—all of still, vegetative, and animal nature, and people—as my own desires that broke away from me due to the shattering and have fallen from my consciousness.

Now, they appear in front of me and I must attach them to myself through my own efforts although it seems to me as if they are outside. I must try to relate to them as if they exist within me. Then, my efforts also will be called the prayer, MAN.

Thus, working on my correct perception of reality and connecting all its parts together by means of the property of mercy, I increasingly return the common vessel to its original form, in other words, to the corrected state as a whole.
[118505]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/13, The Zohar

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An extract from the book The Light of the Sun: …and what is more, when Israel are untied and engage in the Torah, they overcome all those who rise against them by that.

We conquer and neutralize all the forces of evil by keeping the unity between us. They are no longer necessary because all the forces belong to one force: There is none else besides Him, the good that does good. But it is felt as good only if a person yearns for the good according to his level and his ability.

If he doesn’t yearn for that, the same force operates in an opposite manner. Its action is still good and benevolent to the sinners and to the righteous, of course, but a person who is inclined oppositely from the good and the benevolent feels this force as evil. This evil is revealed in different manners according to the attributes and desires that he has to correct by the same Light that Reforms. So it is in this Light that he feels darkness, like a bat that is blinded by the sunlight, in contrast to a rooster that gladly receives the dawn.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/13

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As soon as you are led to the group from above, immediately it starts increasing the value of the goal in order to enhance what is given to you as your first spark. In fact, only by way of this value do you outweigh lies and purchase the truth. And if you don’t receive this value from the group, you will either return to the lies or you will sit idle unable to leave eating yourself up.

But advancing on the path of the truth is possible only when receiving an inspiration from the importance of the goal and the environment. To the degree of this importance, you will be willing to suffer, your ego suffers and the truth grows. After all, it is very painful.

Besides, the group helps me understand that to achieve something is possible only through prayer. A prayer is a plea to transform the desire from receiving to bestowal, from separation and hate to unity and love. I remember how when I was taking a walk with Rabash in the grove near Beit Shemen and I was telling him about all my problems, complaining and screaming for about ten minutes and he quietly listened till he suddenly said: “But why didn’t you ask (Him)?”

We do not have enough of the request: “Why didn’t you ask?” Frankly, our nature doesn’t allow us to come to it, to just ask. Neither our mind nor our heart comprehends that we just need to arrange a plea for correction. And people suffer months and years unable to ask, to raise MAN.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Why is it so hard for us to ask for correction if we know that everything depends on it? It would seem that it’s so natural for a person to ask.

Answer: Yes, it is natural to ask, but here we need to find out exactly: What do we need to ask for, how do we ask, and who is the one that will give us the answer? A prayer is not just a cry, and if it’s put into words, they should be born in the heart not read from a book.

If a person feels bad, he doesn’t choose beautiful words. Our problem is that a prayer doesn’t come from the depth of our hearts.

Only the environment can lead us to such a prayer; if it wants it, you will ask. Why does it seem to us that we all want it and are trying to influence each other but something doesn’t work? The main thing we are lacking is the depth of desire, the truth which is in it. We lack clarification of what is important to me, and that it is secondary to stop being confused between the two desires: material and spiritual.

We have to learn to cast two entirely separate views at the material and the spiritual without mixing them together! Here is this world, egoistic, I’m forced to live in it in the meantime. And there is the world of bestowal and I wish I could begin to live in it. That determines my prayer.

We are still unable to distinguish one from the other, although we can see a lot of progress in it since the last congress.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/21/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Even while under the domination of the egoistic forces, the shells (Klipot), we can awaken the upper. Only those in whom the point in the heart has awakened have the potential of connecting with the Creator, but with an intention that is still for oneself. A person turns to the Creator with intentions that are still for himself and therefore is considered to be at the mercy of the impure forces.

The greater the strength one has to turn to the Creator yet while doing it for himself, the greater the egoism (Klipa). Therefore, as it is written, “He who is greater than his friend, his desire is greater than his.” The great wicked, the enormous forces of egoism, that the Torah speaks about—Balaam, Balak, Pharaoh (the general shell), Haman, Ahaseurus, and the seven nations that occupy the Land of Israel before the arrival of the Jews—all these attributes are awakened in a person according to his level. The greater the shell a person is in, the greater Holiness he is awarded in contrast to it.

The ascent begins when the point in the heart awakens in a person while it is in the captivity of the egoistic force, Klipot, and in the intention to receive for oneself. Despite the egoistic intention of in order to receive in which the point in the heart is, not by choice, it raises a prayer (MAN). Although the prayer is egoistic, in order to receive, it is still a prayer of the lower, of the shell that awakens the upper level to act. Then, the upper begins to work on this prayer and raises it from one level to another until Ein Sof (infinity). However, we learn only about three levels: the lower, the upper, and the uppermost. All the other levels operate in the same way.

This trio constantly operates: the lower, the upper, and the uppermost. The lower is in egoism, and the upper, which feels the sorrow of the lower and knows how to properly translate it, processes the lower’s corrupt prayer to a corrected prayer and raises it to the upper upper that is in holiness, disconnected from the corrupt lower. So, in the upper upper, there is already all the Light and power necessary to take care of the lower.

The upper raises itself to the upper upper with a double prayer: the prayer of the lower and its response to it. So, the upper upper gives it double the greatness that it needs in order to take care of the lower. When it reaches greatness, it can already take care of the corrupt lower. Thus, it turns out that the “first born” that is called the upper Partzuf receives double from the uppermost, its part and the part for the corrupt lower. This is how the chain operates.

This is the only action in our correction and it takes us out of the Klipot. So, the first condition is the prayer. All our spiritual work, all the reality that we feel, is arranged and ready to help raise a prayer to the upper. There is nothing but our request. This is because we cannot perform any actions except for the chance to ask. This is actually what we forget.

We eventually will understand that there is none else besides Him and that the Creator is good and benevolent, that there is one force that operates in reality, about which it is written: “I am the first, and I am the last.” All this is meant to help us discover our request at any given moment.

The request of the lower must be arranged correctly in order to bestow. If we ask for ourselves, we are in the Klipot under the domination of impure, egoistic forces. If we continue to ask for ourselves, we find ourselves more deeply in this egoism.

All of our requests, all the deficiencies—even from the most disgraceful states—still rise upward. The only question is in which form. If the requests are not in equivalence of form with the upper, they still are accepted and still influence the system and its development. But in this case, the forces compel us to torture ourselves and see the world growing more strongly evil and dark. We advance but by the path of suffering, in its time.

If our requests are according to the desire of the upper, they awaken all the levels of correction to rise up to Ein Sof and bring us down the new Light that will clarify, correct, and fill our vessels in order to bestow. Then, we will advance by the path of “I shall hasten it.”
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/22/13

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The most important task in this world is for a person to be constantly ready for prayer. This is the only action that can make a difference. We make efforts physically, mentally, in thought, and in desire, but in fact we needed all these thousands of actions for thousands of years only so that at the end of the matter we would reach the right prayer, cry, desire. When we can accept our desire in the right form, then we will succeed in attracting the higher power to us that does everything.

Only the Light acts and only we with a “point in the heart” are prepared to arouse the Light to action. Basically, all the rest cannot do this, only to the most minimal degree by way of “in its time” (Isaiah 60:22) and to the degree that we are integrated with them, yet no more than this. About this it is written that the “nations of the world” have no link with the higher power, with the Creator. The general desire for pleasure, according to its structure, cannot connect directly with the Creator, except only through those who have the spiritual spark.

Therefore, at those times and in those conditions where we cannot arise correctly for the world, we distance ourselves and the whole world from the Creator. Through the evil powers that rise, by means of the feeling of distance and recognition of evil, in spite of it all we advance, yet not in a desirable way.

Only we who have a “point in the heart” are ready to pray. All the rest do this either out of habit implanted from childhood or with simply egoistic motives. And the prayer of a simple egoist is better since the person screams about his pain. All dissatisfaction is already a prayer and a cry to the Creator, even if the person doesn’t think about Him. This is already some kind of turning upward. These turnings have been gathered for thousands of years from the screams of billions of people, and eventually collectively awaken them and the Upper Light.

Yet even though the Upper Light reaches them through us, the general structure is not changed. Even if we are not ready to work with the Light correctly, it is there and exists. And so it reaches us and bumps into us like a wall because we are found in exile and cannot think about the nations of the world.

In a form like this, we are far from the Creator because we are not raising the prayer to Him, and we are also distant from the nations of the world because we have not conveyed their prayer upwards. It follows that we are at a double loss. We need to consider this! The problems and troubles will not cease as long as the people of Israel have not realized their real task, until it will be the higher level for the nations of the world in order to convey the double prayer, theirs and that of the entire world, to the higher level.

We are supposed to make practical applications for our work with the general public, meaning, those who are not ready to awaken to connection with the Creator and are therefore called the “nations of the world.” As much as this work with people will be perfected, skillful, professional, it will not bring the right results and will not bear fruit if it doesn’t end with a prayer.

All our invested efforts, each one separately and all together, are imperative solely and only so that we will reach prayer. From the start we went out to operate because the Creator sent us (“I am first”) so that as a result of our action we would reach the double prayer after we absorb the desires of the people and thereby arouse our desire. Then we can ask to make us a part of the conduit only for their sake so we will be able to take care of people. After all, the Creator created us with a “point in the heart.”

Following work like this with the general public, we reach the lifting of prayer, that is, the work entrusted to Israel. Here there already exist the three components required for spiritual action: the lower level – the public, the upper level – us; and the highest level – the Creator. In this way we work together.

If we think about this before and after the action, and are prepared to link it to this state, then our action will be blessed and successful. About this it is written: “The firstborn… give him a double share” (Deuteronomy 21:17), for himself and for the younger brother.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/22/13

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Question: Man’s nature is such that he doesn’t wish to recognize his inner evil. Only when cornered does a person feel forced to admit the need for correction. What is this evil that hides within me?

Answer: Unfounded hatred; it destroyed Rabbi Akiva’s disciples. There is no other evil. Everything else is evil from the view of my ego. Only unfounded hatred represents the very evil that resists the good: loving others as we love ourselves. This is the only criterion that I measure myself and my corruption by. All other “vices” are not viewed as flaws by the Creator. They are not considered a good cause to appeal to Him. He expects an authentic plea. The entire system of correction is designed for the broken Kelim, or the desires that are unable to unify.

Question: So, we must constantly feel this evil and not sugarcoat or hide it from ourselves, correct?

Answer: From Psalms: “I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me” (Psalm 51:3). Otherwise, what will I point out to the Creator? What will I require Him to correct? It is really very simple. I wish to participate in the life of the group; I am attracted to it, and at the same time I see that I am unable to do so. This is exactly what we experienced during a Kabbalah congress. Having gathered together, we immediately realized that we don’t want to and cannot unite. This is what is called discovering one’s own evil. It is great! Now we must keep this evil as our target and demand to be reformed.
[29931]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/10, Introduction to The Book of Zohar

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Spiritual development is in feelings because the material of creation is the desire to enjoy. And we can use the mind only on condition that it helps us to correct desire. Otherwise, it can hurt us.

Therefore, it’s said that “there is none wiser than the experienced.” That is, first you need to go through all kinds of feelings and impressions in your desire to enjoy and then from this you obtain wisdom. We cannot work in the mind with what we have not experienced in our desire, that’s called philosophy, which has no real basis. After all, everything is based on the material of desire.

States are changing every second because, if a state does not change, then time is not moving. Any state changes due to the fact that first we cancel ourselves before the influence of the Light. All the work is done by the Light: The Light is primary. It creates a desire, affects, and changes it. We are only required to accept the action of the Light, let it enter, we express our consent, a request, a prayer, to persuade it to do its work.

It all depends on our state: whether we demand like babies or ask like adults. There are many types of relationships between the Light and a person, or rather, the desire for the Light, asking the Light to influence it and make some action on it.

Why is it necessary that the desire turns to the Light and asks it to act? Because through this, the desire understands what the Light is going to do and agrees with this. It acquires intelligence, the head, and makes itself similar to the Light. It cannot perform the action itself; the action relates to the work of the Creator, but because of this, the desire grows until it becomes equal to the Light. My task is to draw the Light on all the actions that I want done to me, and the Light performs everything.

Every request like this begins from self-annulment: I want that a change to be made in me, but don’t know exactly what. After all, this will be a new state, I cannot recognize it or see in advance. It’s impossible to talk about something that I have not yet reached, so I need self-annulment, and I ask the upper one to make this action on me to save me.

I don’t know what He will do and into what He will turn me, what I will become in a moment. Even if the head and the body change, that is, the thought and action, everything, so that I would not recognize my former self as I was a second ago, to such an extent that I would become an entirely new creation. I don’t care what I will become, it’s most important for me to give myself to the Light so that it would perform its action.

I have to be ready for this and wish more than anything else to want to cut myself off from all of the past so that nothing is left from the past, and I would not see a single old property in myself and even that there would be no transition between the past, present, and future. Only then it means that I am ready for the impact of the Light on me.

It should not come from the desire to escape from the previous state. I am asking to be changed not because I feel bad. I don’t ask to be saved from problems as that would be a selfish request instead of the advancement to the next spiritual level. I ask one thing: Help me become like the Light, to become somewhat similar to it, to become a giver for someone.

All that I can clarify is only in the group with respect to the friends, to humanity. Thus I am preparing myself for the true prayer. I am looking for it because I don’t know what this feeling should be. So, I search, work, study, disseminate, do everything I can. You have to be sensitive to what you are given to advance toward the burst of the true prayer, which leads to the answer to it from above.

Thus I come to self-annulment, the feeling of joy, solidarity, loyalty to the Light, which is called the devotion of the soul. I know that everything it will do to me will be correct. And it is not because I want to run away from troubles and I have no other choice, but on the contrary, I am fine and have no shortage in anything. I lack only one thing: handing myself to the Light and becoming included in the quality of bestowal so that it would rule over me and allow me not to think about myself but to be loyal to that one property.

This is called the correct prayer, the request for the first action of the Light, which is the beginning of the spiritual embryo. After that, a person begins to feel his connection with the Light to the extent that he feels like a drop of spiritual seed that must cancel itself inside the property of bestowal.

This starts a long process of spiritual growth of the embryo that passes in constant self-annulment relative to the Light, which every time passes more properties of bestowal to the embryo. The entire spiritual path, the entire ladder, birth, suckling, and maturity, is the acquisition of additional properties of bestowal over the previous state. Thus the soul grows.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/16/13

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