Question: You say that “it is impossible to thank the Creator when I am crying.” What does this mean?

Answer: I cannot cry from pain and simultaneously thank the one who causes me this pain. The sensation of pain suggests that you cannot thank Him, i.e., you might be doing this but superficially. You understand and are aware of this in your mind but not in the feelings.

You need to work on your feelings so that you can feel pleasure instead of pain while correcting the egoism. If the obstruction comes from the Creator, then it should be turned into happiness, joy, and pleasure. This is what we are engaged in. This is the correction of our Kelim (vessels).

But as long as you feel at least some flaw in your state, it is not called that you thank the Creator. In principle, He does not need to be thanked. When you feel good, this is your unconscious gratitude to Him. And if you also attribute this to Him, then it is complete gratitude. It’s very simple.
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From the Convention In Krasnoyarsk 6/14/13, Lesson 3

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Question: How can I correct my ego? What should I do with the pain it causes me?

Answer: Simple, think only about how to do good unto others and rejoice at their joy. This is the only way we can transcend ourselves.

Question: But I am a human being! If I am cut it hurts. How can I think about others if I feel pain now?

Answer: Try to be in him instead of in you despite the pain. Is there any other way?

When you reach the state that you want to be in someone else instead of yourself and to feel only him and even the group, since there everything is “spread out,” and everything is selfless, and you cannot do that, the Creator will help you.

He will come to your aid, since here you are already asking for a change that you cannot perform by yourself. Then He will come and take you to the next level.

It is an anti-egoistic action. In the meantime you are not asking for it yet. When you cry out not because you feel bad in the exile on Egypt, but because you cannot bestow since you are in your ego, you will be awarded with the exit to the upper world!

However, you shouldn’t just hope for this, but act! You should clearly understand what it means to exit the ego, what the revelation of the Creator means, and what spiritual birth means.

If you want to perform anti-egoistic actions, it means that your suffering shouldn’t interest you anymore! You should only be interested in bestowal: “No matter what I feel, I cannot bestow, and that hurts. It hurts!” Then you are allowed to enter the upper world.
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From the Convention In Krasnoyarsk Day One 6/14/13, Lesson 3

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Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”: This is the key to understanding the weakness of world-reformers throughout the generations. They regarded man as a machine that is not operating properly and needs mending, meaning to remove the corrupted parts and replace them with good ones.

And that is the tendency of all world reformers—to eradicate any harmful and bad in the human species… and it is true that if the Creator had not stood against them, they would certainly have by now cleansed man entirely, leaving only the good and useful.

But don’t we want to correct the world? So, what makes us different from others?

Comment: Only the Light that Reforms corrects and we attract it.

Answer: True. We do not make the correction but draw the Light so that it does its job. We seem to open the valve which was blocking its path. That is why we do not belong to those “world-reformers” about whom Baal HaSulam writes. After all, they want to do all the work themselves.

This is a fundamental difference. Take a look at what happens to the world: No matter how much people strive to solve its problems, all is in vain. In fact, it is necessary only to allow the Light to correct the human being and accept the result. Do not do anything else—only let the Light work. Any additional action is not just unnecessary, but harmful.

This is what we should understand and then all our deeds will be aimed at bestowal. By adding the correct intention to them, we allow the Light to work on the world, on the entire still, vegetative, animate, and human nature; the Light will adjust everything according to our strengths, our desire, to the opportunities that we open before it.

We do not interfere in the process of correction; we do not know what is good or bad, what the order of actions is, or how to implement it. We just want to open the path to the Light and that is all.

Of course, we would like to know more, to understand what is happening, participate in work, take part in the process, to be active… However, all these impulses should be directed only at one thing—to let the Light in.

If we act in the wrong direction, if we want to perform this work ourselves instead of allowing the Light to do this, then we are only causing a bad addition to our activities until we learn the lesson and understand what is required of us.

That is why, if we want to advance, in principal, we have to focus on the correct intention and actions and only those that give the Light the opportunity to correct.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: In what intention do we need to be to correct the world during the upcoming convention?

Answer: If we are connected with each other well and strongly, with the intention for our goal, in common mutual bestowal, this will definitely reach the world, and it will start to change.

The fact is that we are connected together through the same inner system. What we study in Kabbalah: Sefirot, Partzufim, the worlds—all these are connections between us. They are not somewhere in outer space: This is our real connection.

Revealing it in the groups of ten, we suddenly see that there are the circles of the worlds between us that connect us, how we influence these connections, and they affect us, and the Light is manifested between them—this is the manifestation of the Creator, His revelation.
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From the Virtual Lesson 6/2/13

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Baal Hasulam, “The Peace”: These are the words of Rabbi Akiva: “The book is open and the hand writes.” Any state that the generation is in is like a book, and all the evildoers are as writing hands because each evil is carved and written in the book until they accumulate to an amount that the public can no longer bear. At that time, they ruin that evil state and rearrange into a more desirable state. Thus, each and every act is calculated and written in the book, meaning in the state.

And he says, “All who wish to borrow may come and borrow.” This means that he believes that this world is not like an open store without an owner, but that there is an owner present, a shopkeeper who stands in his store and demands of each customer the right price for the merchandise he is taking from the store, meaning toil in His work while he is nourished by that store, in a manner that is certain to bring him to the purpose of creation, as He pleases.

His goal is to attain bestowal. However, a person requires powers to realize this, and he doesn’t have these powers. He takes them on loan, even though he intends it all for bestowal. What is more, this is even if he wants to repay, that is, not to use anything for himself. He uses the entire world for bestowal.

According to the standards of our world, it is impossible to declare that a person like this is taking something on loan. You see that we get a loan for personal benefit. Here, everything is otherwise. Incidentally, the Torah’s prohibition against giving a loan with interest is derived from this. In the spiritual world, no loan must be paid back with more than what had been received.

So, the forces that I don’t have from the start I take on loan, but I am not taking for myself. They are not mine, I only add to them a desire for the sake of bestowal. Instead of the Creator, I bestow to everyone, and my entire goal is only to convey this bestowal skillfully, as if it were from His hands. I have nothing of my own besides my altruistic self that contracts the egoistic desire within it and acts above it. Therefore, essentially, I don’t have anything to return.

Question: In spite of all this, it is not clear: How can a person ask for a loan for himself in spirituality?

Answer: So, I said that this is another kind of loan. You see, I don’t have my own powers of bestowal. Additionally, I (specifically, I) want to give just as the Creator does. I have to transmit and give that which He wishes for the world.

This state is described allegorically with a metaphor that says that the Creator wanted to give the nations of the world the method of correction. However, they could not accept it. So, He used a transitional group called Israel, which means “straight to the Creator.” The people of Israel are like coordinators that connect the upper Light with the AHP. Thanks to this, Malchut can rise to Bina and be “sweetened” there so as to pass the Light from above downward.

So, this is called a loan only because a person doesn’t have the power of bestowal, and he receives this from the Creator. However, he doesn’t use it for himself, as it is customary in our egoistic world. In this world, a person seeks benefit for himself first of all, and afterward, he thinks about benefit for others, whether this is financial matters, well-being, or net pleasure. In spirituality, I ask not for myself. I want to participate in the life of the Creator. This participation is intended entirely for bestowal. For the sake of this, I activate all of my desire to the maximum possible level. Everything else I temporarily keep “locked up” under the restriction.

Question: So, how is it necessary to ask for a loan like this for the goal of bestowal?

Answer: This is called ascent, a request for correction (MAN). From the Creator, I request power to be able to examine, to correct, the deed itself. I want Him to do this, as it is written: “Be clothed in me and perform the deed of bestowal.” It is like an infant asks for help from his mother or simply cries, and the mother comes and helps. The entire problem is to turn into a “crying infant” internally. And it takes time to learn this….
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/13, “The Peace”

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Question: Besides prayer, what helps a person “cut his ego to pieces” time after time?

Answer: The question itself is incorrect. There is no other means than prayer. Prayer is the conclusion of all the right stages of examination, when it has become clear that I have nothing more upon which to rely since I am this creature, I am the result of the higher forces. The one thing that is left to me is to turn to the origin from where everything evolves into me. This is to an origin that dominates me one hundred percent.

The rules of the system are not subject to change. So if I am their derivative, what can I do? My brain only helps me to understand that I am enabled. From here it can give me practical advice: “Turn to the Creator.”

That’s it. What other possibilities can there be? Disturbances and friction between us will not help; the opposite: They will shatter the entire system, and even this is just in our eyes. Because in fact, we don’t subtract or add anything, we simply don’t carry out the only action in this entire physical world that was given to us.

So let’s stop behaving like bulls held by the horns and think about what we can truly do. Everything else, one way or another, will produce nothing. Only prayer remains.

But what must the form of the prayer be? How is this request raised about the correction of Malchut which wants to acquire the characteristic of Bina? Regarding this we need to work. If there is already a force acting within the operating system, it must be activated. For me below, a possibility like this exists: To arouse, to call for this force, to the degree of the desire of the level of Adam within me.

And conversely, if I don’t awaken it, I am not connected with it and am left on the level of a beast. In this case it acts on me directly, from above to below, without my participation.

I was given the point in the heart, so I would be able to reach the right question and raise my request. But first I need to check and prepare everything that is required, to clarify what depends on me and what doesn’t, where I am found, and how to arrange my request so that it will reach the target and be influential.

You see what leads me is a system of laws that are not subject to change, devoid of intelligence and emotion. Even if you were to stand on your head before it, this would not help. This says that I need to build my structure in the right way, this being called “existence” from below to above, within the ten Sefirot of the Returning Light. And even if I were still to scream according to my understanding of all the mechanisms of what is happening, in spite of it all, within my scream everything must be arranged correctly.

So for this, the upper Light gives me an environment prepared in the right way to develop my scream. If I relate to a group as a Kli that is ready to convey my unclear scream, built from desire, yet still without form like an infant, then this scream will acquire the right form. This will make it possible to reach the source, the force that acts within creation.

In response, this force descends on me again through the environment. Otherwise, I would not be ready to receive the Light and it would simply burn me. Specifically, the upper Light influences my connection with the friends to the degree that I am loyal to them. It influences the place where we connect, coordinated with it, since only there am I accommodated to it.

So from my side there needs to be a request that passes through the environment, making it possible for them to hear it. And from the side of the Creator the Light also arrives through the environment, accommodates itself to me, so that I will be able to accept, feel and understand it.

It follows, that the environment is a two-way mutual adapter between me and the Creator. Everything takes place within this system called a “group,” a “people,” or more correctly, one soul.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Mutual Guarantee”

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Question: Whenever we speak about asking something from the Creator, it seems like an attempt to escape reality. After all, I don’t see the Creator and I don’t know who He is. If creation is managed by fixed laws, then how can I ask anything from them?

Answer: A request is not just words. When you ask for something, you discover a deficiency, a demand. This deficiency is a force, a “minus,” a negative that draws fulfillment. With this, you turn to the “plus,” to the positive, and draw it, activating the force.

Let go of the corporal picture of the bodies, trees, animals… Erase it, and, behind it, you will discover a void with two forces, a positive one and a negative one. Then, you will be able to activate the negative force intentionally as you choose selectively, and through that you necessarily will activate the positive force that is opposite to it.

You were given a chance to control your negative force. Other people wander in this void having no freewill and no understanding, just like particles that are influenced by different forces. Although you are a particle too, you were given the opportunity to focus your charge in a certain direction. This means that you operate a desire or a prayer, or, in other words, a deficiency or a request.

Although the words confuse us, we must remember that it is about forces. Therefore, it says that everything is attained by the force of prayer. We already know what a prayer is: It is the work in the heart that arranges the desires and directs them so that they can change the current map of forces.

I can change all the forces through my desire that is directed in a certain way. It is great work, real work in the field of forces. There is nothing but that. All the other “attires” are fictitious.

So, the wisdom of Kabbalah tells you that you are a force, a desire, and how you can focus yourself and be an active and even a beneficial force.

Thus, you understand that if you don’t do anything in the field of forces, you remain a zero. However, Kabbalists tell you that this isn’t so. If you were just an “animal,” you would remain a zero, but since you are given different opportunities that you don’t fulfill, then you are not just a “zero,” but a harmful force. Then, you must be “shaken” so that you will understand that.

I repeat, erase the picture of our fictitious world from your imagination, and feel that you are in a world of two forces: a negative one and a positive one, a desire to receive and a desire to bestow. We were given the opportunity to connect the two, and the connection between the “plus” and the “minus” is determined by resistance.

There are different types of resistance: a simple resistor, a cable, and so on. Certain factors create fields, and other factors create linear forces. The spiritual system also is varied and full. Some of the activities are fulfilled by the Surrounding Lights, as in a conduction coil; other Lights sustain the current state and don’t allow the force to burst, like a cable, and there are Lights that reduce the force or those that increase it. In addition, these forces connect in two lines that continue the three lines.

Generally speaking, it is about very complex systems that operate these two forces. To “pray” means to fulfill the opportunity you were given to increase your force. Thus, I change the whole system as if I have another supplier of power. Actually, there is no other supplier, but I use other suppliers like a solar panel that receives the sun’s energy and converts it, aiming at another function, for example, heating water or generating electricity.

So, a prayer or a request is the force that I operate in the system. I don’t simply ask the Creator to give me something. No, I know for sure what force I activate, how exactly I activate it, and what I can get in response. This is indeed an active spiritual act.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Question: What should my prayer, MAN, in the group of ten be?

Answer: A prayer, MAN, depends upon the state that you are in. You may be asking something from them and they may be asking something from you, and you operate mutually in relation to one another. Or you may be already connected and together ask from the upper one who is in the group of ten.

You say: “The Creator is in the connection between us.” This connection between us is the mother’s womb, it’s ZAT (the lower seven) of Bina, our upper one. There is no other upper one but our connected group. But we are not connected yet, and so we turn to our future, connected, and corrected form that is our next, higher level. We turn to it and to the Creator who is concealed in it. This means that the prayer, MAN, can be aimed from each of you to others, or from all of you towards your future upper form.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/13, TES

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Question: What does it mean that a person should only present his “half a shekel” in the work and the Creator adds the other half?

Answer: My “half a shekel” means that I have to bring a vessel, a deficiency, while the filling comes from Above. This deficiency is necessary in order to acquire the force of bestowal. If my deficiency is right, I will receive the other half.

But usually we prepare the desire to receive for our own sake and cry out: “Give me, Give me!” Then we say: “The Creator doesn’t give us anything! He must be wrong and this whole method doesn’t work.”

We are not aware of the fact that our vessel is actually aimed at what the Creator doesn’t give. He only gives us a vessel of bestowal, the Light that Reforms, which is the only thing for which you may ask. If you really ask for that, you receive it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/3/13, Writings of Rabash

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After a very powerful Men’s Convention, we feel great heaviness. But I think that it should be the opposite since we have ascended to a new level, have received new desires, and now have to go out and fight the narrow-minded world we have returned to. We have to fight so all the confusions and the hardening of the heart that we will feel will not wane our feeling of awe and elation. If we won’t let things calm us down, then all the locks will become openings and the gates will open up.

If you feel heavy and indifferent, it is a sign that you are working with your primordial raw egoism. It is the way it operates in its pure form, as a feeling of a dark extinguished desire that doesn’t care about anything. Now you have been given another ten pounds or ten ounces of desire, it doesn’t really matter how much, and you have fallen under this load.

You mustn’t refuse to receive the new desire since doing so is considered disrespect of the chance to advance, of the gift you are given from Above. But you should ask for two things: From the group, you should ask for support, empowerment, mutual guarantee, and mutual responsibility; and from the Creator, you should ask for correction, awakening, elation, and the Light.

You have to ask. There is nothing you can do other than that! If you stop asking, then you immediately fall into a state of unconsciousness. So you must constantly ask and pray internally, focusing on the group and on the Creator, holding on to this prayer. Otherwise, you fall into a deep sleep.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/13, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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