The whole world is a force and not matter. So you give importance to the force of thoughts and your attitude to the friends. It is what operates in reality. By your attitude to others, you correct and change the world. No one can stand in the way of such power. If you think and worry about the connection with the friends from morning to night and that it should bring us, the world, and the Creator good, then you are actually performing a very powerful action, which cannot be compared with anything else.

The power of thought, the power of our desire, is the most important thing. If you activate it according to the goal of the creation, then you influence things much more strongly than an ordinary person.

Question: Can this be proven?

Answer: The point is that I don’t want to prove it to myself. The proof will give me egoistic confidence, while I want the opposite, I want to bestow upon the friends by using these forces so that I won’t be able to see the result. I want to help, to connect, to love, but not in order to receive a reward.

After all, I need something else: I am ready to pay with my attitude toward the friends, in order to discover one thing only—whose command am I fulfilling? I want to discover the Creator and to bring Him contentment by that.

Then, I have to conceal the result, so that the reward won’t bribe me. By that, I attain the point from which bestowal begins.

Question: Why am I not attracted to this?

Answer: Because this truth is opposite from us.

Question: So how can we advance?

Answer: By small lies every step of the way. You conceal the truth from yourself and play as if it is attractive and will bring you some reward.

Question: What will force me to think about the friends all day?

Answer: The recognition of the importance: “I will profit from this, I will attain spirituality; otherwise, my whole life will be wasted in vain. I have to attain something in life.” It says: “Taste and see that God is good.” “So, where is He? How can I taste Him? I have to manage until the evening, no matter what…”

You are told: “If you worry about the friends, if you lower your head before them, if you join them, then you will discover spirituality.” You are ready for that; you imagine the reward according to your taste, as it says: “Educate a child according to his way.” You imagine spirituality as tempting, as some great spaces, hovering in space, forces, and you are drawn to them.

Everyone depicts his own image. Ask the friends to explain the goal and its importance to you. We have to feel the taste of love: Ask for it.
[95859]
From the 4^th Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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We need to understand that the more we advance, the more difficult the work becomes. Now when we don’t see a reward, it is easy for us to work. We only have to believe that we will get a reward. The friends tell us that there is a great goal ahead, the Creator’s greatness, for which we should work, and I run to it as if I see how great He is.

Actually I don’t see that; it is the environment that has persuaded me, and I receive energy and fuel from that. I need to keep only one condition in order to work for the right cause: to annul myself before the friends. This means that of all the conditions, I have to keep only one condition: to lower myself. Then the group will begin to impress me and to evoke the greatness of the goal in me, the greatness of the Creator, the reward, to motivate me. This is enough to make me run forward.

It is the easiest condition. After all, when later the Creator’s greatness is really revealed to me, how will I be able to work not for myself as if there is no reward if you know that at the end of the month you will get a million dollars? And it is for the easiest work, like opening the door for someone once a day, for example, and that’s it. How can I get rid of this thought? Now I have to work very hard, against my desire to receive.

The whole way, from one phase to another, to the extent that we advance, we discover what big and important business we are dealing with, the most profitable business. We will have to overcome this notion, as if we have nothing and to detach ourselves from our egoistic desire and hide.

It is very difficult. The first current condition that we have to keep is much easier; it is the simplest of all. So we finally have to keep it and to end this phase! I have to annul myself in order to receive from the environment the greatness of the goal, the greatness of the Creator, and the group, so that it will give me the fuel to advance. Only one condition is required, a small concession of my ego.

Then all these concessions will gradually grow and won’t be just self-annulment, but I will start working with the desire to receive. Each time I will have to agree or disagree, until I draw the Light upon me.

If I don’t manage to annul myself, I have to connect to the Light that Reforms. First I try to subdue myself by myself, but then I see that I cannot do that and that the resistance in me only increases. Then I begin to look for a way to annul myself and only then do I feel the need to draw the Light to help me. Now I already know what I have to look for during the lesson.

We have to write down the principles we will work on, so that this work will be shared by everyone. Everyone has to make efforts and to care about mutual guarantee and the collective fulfilling of the principles.
[95851]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”: Likewise, all the fixed pictures that we know and use to define materials are inconsistent and do not exist in their own right. Rather, they only dress and undress forms under the influence of conditions such as heat or cold.

During the lesson we think about the force that “draws” the material that actually doesn’t exist. If, while we are reading, we are together, we constantly think about the united group and want to discover the general force among us, then we discover a whole world and live in it in a much clearer, more emotional, and more intensive way than our current life.

This is no fantasy. Evoke these forces. Now you are looking at the friends sleepily, and they look at you in the same way. So evoke these forces together and you will understand that there are worlds between you and that everything depends on your closeness and unity in your mind and your feelings, in your yearning and your inclination, in the desire to feel your inner essence together. Suddenly you will see how the abstract force turns into something real and concrete.

Previously you only paid attention to “coarse” corporeal forces: heat, cold, pressure, etc. But there are much finer and stronger forces in a person than the ones that operate even in the micro-world, on a subatomic level. These fine forces reveal the real material to you. When you enter this field, you discover that it is the beginning and the end of everything, that all of creation is there with its plan. Here, however, there is nothing but the false, artificial, external drawing that is meant to confuse you and to focus you on the correction by false incentives without taking your freewill from you and so as not to turn you into a robot.

This realization should focus us on the main thing, on developing the forces that are between us. They are the strongest “weapon” against evil, against all our problems. Even in our imaginary world subatomic forces are much stronger than the ordinary forces of the macro world. A lot of energy is required in order to cause a collision between the particles in the collider. We, however, enter the field of our personal forces that operate between the friends. This is such great intensity that cannot be measured by using the means we have in this world.

It is a real force. We only have to reach it and to learn how to manage it, since it will not be revealed without an intention to bestow, for the good of others.

Question: Does this mean that there are forces in me that enable me to discover a new reality? How can I find them?

Answer: Start acting, exert yourself, fix the connection with the friends, annul yourself, and by that allow them to connect to you. Start evoking them so that they will impress you with the greatness of the goal. We should make such efforts every day, every moment, because the desire to receive is constantly renewed and constantly demands us to renew our relationships, the whole Ha-Va-Ya-H. This is all our work.

If you evoke and arrange the forces that connect you with the friends as correctly as possible, the force of bestowal and the force of receiving, you will discover that the relationships between you are much more important than the corporeal world.

It will come, since you study and you are expecting the Light that Reforms, and it will influence you. Suddenly you will discover that the relationships between you are the most important thing, and then you will begin to discover a new spiritual material, which is much more real and concrete than what surrounds you today. It will be so powerful, heavy, and real that the temporary, imaginary picture of this world will dissolve on its background.
[95768]
From the 4^th Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Question: What do we need to keep in mind so that the group doesn’t turn into a bunch of mockers?

Answer: Each time, we deliberately fall under the influence of the Creator who taunts us and shakes us like babies so much He as if simply “shakes it all out” of us. Today we are so nice and “cute,” ready to love everyone and everything. But tomorrow we will once again be completely opposite. How can we forget that our path is made of ascents and descents? We can’t remember it if we forget about the Creator.

Why is it said: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one”? Israel means “yearning for the Creator.” Hence the remedy for correction: our studies, the group, where all of this gets realized, and the Creator Himself have to be as one, in one place. There are the Creator, the group, and me.

We have to constantly link it all together into one unified whole; there can’t be any other view of the world! In order to focus and properly look at what is happening, I need these three points: the eye, the sight, and the target. Otherwise, I won’t be able to do anything.

Therefore, if we wish to keep the group in the right intention, it is our responsibility to keep in mind that our goal is adhesion with the Creator. Otherwise, what is going to motivate us, our egoism? Today I am willing; tomorrow I am not.

Here the Creator appears as the definer, the first to act, or the one who initiates our actions, who forms the group and everything that is happening to us, who gives us everything. All that we have in our hearts and mind right now, all that we hear and feel, all of it is His doing.

How should we, together, respond to it, based on the fact that we felt something coming from Him? From this moment on, our work begins. This is exactly the moment when all of us clearly felt that it was He who brought us together right now; He connects us all in one desire, one intention, and the same thought. It is He who arranged everything for us, so that we all together started to ascend to and strive for Him.

So how can we rise to Him so that we could consciously fortify among ourselves what He has created? What does it mean: “I now link myself with the group?” I link myself along with the others and the Creator into the common desire, one common goal, and common aspiration. If the effort that each of us exerts links all the others and the Creator together, this is precisely our active response. This is how we must act. If we envision that everything derives from the Creator and know how we should respond to it, then it will be very effective work, a very effective move.
[95564]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 4

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Question: How is it possible to love a friend like your own son?

Answer: In our world, we were given this example of a natural, human love for one’s child. And according to this, we need to measure what spiritual love means. It’s love at a level “+1.”

Question: But it’s quite obvious that this is impossible?

Answer: Nothing is impossible! Because everything is impossible without the help of the Creator, only the Light makes everything possible. And if something seems impossible to us, this means that we need to ask first, and only then it will become possible, the Creator will do it.

The world is divided into two parts. One part is the action that the Light performs automatically, without our request, and this is what we refer to as “possible,” and we think that we’re doing them ourselves with our own will. But we don’t do anything ourselves; we’re not capable of doing anything. However, we don’t need to ask in advance for the Creator to do those things.

But there are also actions that we must request first, because through asking, we show that we desire this action, that we desire correction. This correction should happen in me, it should bring things inside me into order and reformat me, and thus it must be preceded by my request.

This request means that I cleave to the Creator, I reveal him through His actions. But this entire correction is done by the Creator. So all actions are divided into “possible” and “impossible.” Impossible ones are those that won’t happen on their own but only after my request.

You love your son with a natural, animal love. But love for a friend is an ascent to the next degree of love, love that is perfect and eternal, which is much greater than the love for one’s own child.

The very first spiritual love towards others, which appears in the very first degree, is already an order of magnitude greater than all your love for your family. Just ask the Creator for it, and He will do… The entire world was only created as an example so that you would have something from which to begin loving, something relative to which you can measure yourself.
[95462]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: Do we draw the Creator by actions that are aimed at the revelation of spirituality? In other words, do we raise the actions or do we lower the Creator?

Answer: There are no such terms as “up” or “down” in spirituality in the simple sense of the words. We can divide them according to quality: Up means a higher quality and down means a lower quality.

I want to be connected to the Creator in all my actions; I want to feel how He manages me from the inside, I want to feel that all my thoughts, feelings, and decisions stem from Him. He is inside me, as the hand wearing the glove of the puppet, the puppeteer.

No matter what I do, it is Him, but everything depends on the extent to which I discover that “there is none else besides Him.” Therefore I ask and yearn for it in order to discover Him in me.

But I can do it only when I am with the group, because it is impossible to discover the attributes of bestowal alone. I am an egoist, an individualist, which means that I have to be with a group and to adhere to it.

I am included in a group, connect to the friends, and try to be with them in one desire, one inclination. Through them I ask for all of us, because I cannot ask for myself, since it will be egoism again. I ask for all of humanity—that the Creator will be revealed in us and that we will all feel Him and feel how He operates in us. This is how I want to see what joy and contentment we are bringing Him.

This is fulfilled by the law of “the end result is in the initial thought,” since in spirituality there is no time and no sequential actions. There is a static state, and it is only with regard to us that it is revealed this way, so that we will perceive it gradually.

We must understand the whole formula of creation from the beginning to the end, since otherwise it won’t work. We have to be moderately involved in it, since even our slightest participation is made of the same ten Sefirot according to the law of “the general and the individual are equal.” So we have to feel ourselves deeply, the group, humanity, and the Creator together in one general picture and to complete it.

Question: What is the Creator’s joy?

Answer: The Creator’s joy is the state in which we are all connected, adhered inside Him, enjoying the same wholeness that is actually the Creator Himself.
[95574]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/9/12, Lesson 5

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Question: If love towards friends means to prefer his desire more than mine, what desires are we talking about?

Answer: As Baal HaSulam writes in his article, “The Last Generation,” one needs to be concerned that each person in the world will have his necessities for normal material existence met. And if the friend himself will relate to it like that, he will not need any extras.

And all the rest needs to be directed toward the support of the friend on the spiritual path. So what does it mean that I love the friend? How can I fulfill his desires? If I worried about food for him and anything he needs for his existence, in the other things, I support him spiritually: showing him my awakening and transferring to him the feeling of the greatness of the Creator and the importance on the spiritual path that awakens me and fulfills me in force. I act towards him as toward my child, which I want to attract to a beneficial action, and therefore I show him my interest, the desire, my appreciation. Exactly in the same way, I must show an example to the friend. It means, that I supply him with spiritual nourishment besides the corporeal nourishment, it means, that I love him.

Precisely this attitude, we must develop in our group. To give a friend the feeling of the greatness of the goal and my personal example of the loyalty to it, this is called to love the friend. And by that I prefer his desire above my desire. I take into consideration what he needs, the necessary corporeal means, and all the rest is toward his spiritual development. All this I must supply to him.

I must worry that he will arrange his life in a normal form, to help him find a job, etc. And from a spiritual aspect, I must encourage him with the greatness of the goal. And by that, I prefer his desire above my desire, I am worried for his development, and not mine. If I worry for a friend, this is the best thing for my development. But all of that I do in order to reach the love of God.

One must connect to a whole one: Israel, Oraita, and Kedosh Berach Hu (Israel, the Torah, and the Creator). Otherwise, it turns out that I simply love the friend in a natural egoistical love like for my child.

Precisely this form of work is called “the work of God.” If I relate to a friend in this way, through him I direct myself to the Creator. Love of others is necessary only in order to reach love of God. Through this man reveals the concealment that was made by the Creator, so we will practice in the love of others and reach the love of God.
[95465]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How can we build the correct intention with respect to the group? How is it expressed? How can one understand that he is in the correct intention?

Answer: The intention relative to the group should be very simple: I came to the group to get rid of my egoism, to rise above it, to adhere to the Creator, to reveal my next level, become a human being. This is how I should view the group and do everything that leads me to this goal.

We need to remember this and to adhere to this rule. Moreover, I do not look at the faces, characters, anything; I do not care; they can say whatever they want. First of all, I want to eliminate my “I,” I just want to go along with them. And then, we will move on.

I can actively engage in the work of the group above the fact that I have annulled myself only after I have succeeded in elevating them. Usually people start to enforce everything with their egoism, begin to change everything by force, as it is customary in our world. It cannot happen in the group.
[95350]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 4

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The Writings of Rabash, “Maoz Tzur Yeshuati (The Rock of My Salvation),” Article 13: … but what can a person do when he wants to praise (the Creator) and his heart is sealed, and he feels that he is full of deficiencies, and that he cannot open his mouth and say a song of praise. The advice is to work above reason, and to say that everything is “concealed Hassadim,” which means that he should say that everything is Hesed, but that it is concealed from him, because he isn’t qualified to see the good and the delight that the Creator has prepared for His created beings.

Question: How can one reach the state of praising the Creator?

Answer: Suppose you feel bad, problems follow you, you have unpleasant thoughts, unfulfilled desires are torturing you, and you are upset and mad at everyone around you. Now you have to rise to the level of there is none else besides Him and that the Creator is good and benevolent. You do that by building the corresponding calculation, you make many efforts, search incessantly, and gradually you rise above reason.

At the same time, it’s important to clarify why you are doing that: Is it because you are confused? Or is it because you have an unpleasant feeling? Could it be that it’s because of the fear of punishment? Or is it because you want to bring the Creator contentment?

Eventually you see that everything stems from Him, that He is good and benevolent as He raises you from the previous level to a higher level.

This is how you advance: You thank the Creator for what He has done, and of course, you immediately receive new problems and descents. Time after time you rise and descend, increasingly faster than you can calculate and arrange, in order to stabilize your attitude to what is going on.

Still this process continues. First you operate out of fear, since you are afraid of different troubles and don’t want to feel unpleasantness. But gradually you balance yourself with the Creator and begin to think about bestowal a little. Then He immediately throws you off track and now you try to work together with Him. Next time you already want Him to feel good, and the time after that you really operate for the Creator, by wanting to justify Him, not because you want to save yourself or others from suffering.

Thus you advance, by clinging more tightly to the intention of in order to bestow each time. You constantly understand and assess the situation, but the assessment is always according to one criterion: “To what extent do I think of the Creator?”
[95188]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What should a person do if he is in a state of joy too much?

Answer: There cannot be “too much” since we have to be in Ein Sof (Infinity) in this state. It cannot be a question of time since everything disappears, both time and distance.

Question: What can we do to not simply remain in this state, but to make the best use of it? I understand that I have to turn to the Creator, but it takes so long to receive an answer.

Answer: The fact is that many have similar complaints: “There is no answer!”

The spiritual world is, on one hand, integral, analog, and, on the other hand, it is impulse. This means that there is a kind of dualism. Is an electron a particle or a wave? Is the Light a particle or a wave or both? We don’t understand that at the moment. Physicists say this, but they don’t feel it; this just comes from experimental studies.

On the one hand, our senses are seemingly constant, flowing in a current, and not in pulses. On the other hand, they pulse, that is, in ten Sefirot or five phases. If you come one millimeter before the first phase, you feel as if you haven’t even started the work and still have no contact with it.

If there has to be a thousand volts, then there has to be a thousand volts. Suppose you have a thousand rubles. You pay, and you cross the border, like when boarding a plane. However, if there is one penny missing, no matter what you say, you will not be allowed to pass.

These are the attributes of the upper world. You must have a certain potential of desire in your question so that you will be rewarded with an answer. However, in the meantime, you don’t reveal it. You are in a sea of Light, but, if your vessel cannot contain the Light (which means that you don’t reach it by your sufferings, both in quality and in quantity, according to the intensity of the question until you reach a certain volume), then you will not feel the answer. It is because your question isn’t ripe yet, and you see it from your unripe state.

You are saying, “I am already somewhere in this Light, so what’s next?” If you arrived in the last full feeling of your current state, then, after that, you would feel the next level in the form of a new desire. So, go on feeling, but try to understand more for what and how. The clarification of this state is lacking.
[95172]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 3

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