We are inside a Force called the Creator (Boreh). Since we don’t attain it yet according to the principle of “come and see” (Bo–reh), we give it different names according to the current measure of its revelation to a person.

I am in this Force’s field along with everyone else. The question is how can I induce its influence? Indeed, this is man’s entire work: How can I awaken this force so that it can raise me?

We descended from the spiritual height to the “zero level” on purpose, and now it is up to me to ascend back to the same height. In order to do that, I have to awaken the Light that Reforms upon me. There is no other force that can raise me to spirituality. I only have the means that exist on my level. The Creator wakes me from the dream by the first “sting,” and then I have to process what awakened me internally by special means: the group, the study, and the teacher.

So I turn to the Light that awakened me initially. I ask that it will influence me, and I do it consciously and knowingly. The Light only stings me time after time and by that I have to establish my attitude to it: What do I ask from it, what kind of influence do I expect, what do I want to attain, and so on. On the whole I picture to myself how to be in accordance with the One who “stings” me. I have to look for His form, His image and to ask from Him:

– “I want to bestow!”
– “How do you want to become the one who bestows? Is it really the one who bestows? What will your bestowal be like?”
– “Don’t you see? I study, I work in a group and in dissemination, I do all sorts of actions, and based on that I ask.”

If a person doesn’t perform actions directed at unification, there is no basis for his request. These actions make up the infrastructure that he can use to raise MAN, a prayer. I build this infrastructure between me and the friends from which the MAN, “a prayer of the many,” rises. I will never be able to ask for connection by myself. A prayer for connection can only be collective, at least between two people.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/4/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Where should I start the true demand to bestow? How is it possible to defeat the avid sinner inside me?

Answer: We don’t have a true demand for bestowal, and we cannot have one either unless the Light influences us. When the Light comes, you will be surprised and wonder: Is this the attribute of bestowal? It will be in contrast to everything you have thought.

It is a totally new thing and a person living in our reality has no preparation or premonitions as to what it is like. When a person has this delicate feeling, he begins to act, even unconsciously, in order to get closer to it. He begins to attach all his life, everything that he has been through, to this goal only, to attaining a drop of adhesion with the upper.

For the first time he has an inner inclination for something that is distant and from that moment on he begins to develop.

It is impossible to express this feeling in words, but a person cannot wake up if the upper Light doesn’t wake him. A person who has already tasted it knows what it is about, but as long as you haven’t experienced it yourself, you will not understand.

So it is impossible to ask for true bestowal unless you have attained this attribute. But thanks to this game, we advance when a person fills all the necessary requirements. Not knowing in advance how to do it, an inner awakening takes place, and it is as if a spark of Light is kindled and a person begins to feel that there is something that is different from this world, which is bestowal.

We just have to play the best that we can, everything that is in our power. I am sure that we are approaching this revelation, but everyone should ask himself at what speed.
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From a Talk about Inner Work 9/30/12

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No matter what happens in my life, I must understand that it all comes from the upper force that undoubtedly controls everything. But so far it isn’t revealed to me that way, but in concealment, and so I suffer.
The Creator is good and benevolent, but He is revealed to me after going through a “filter” that turns all the good into something bad and unpleasant. I call the thickness of this “filter” “single concealment.” In addition, the Creator can place another “filter” and send me to a “double concealment,” which is much worse.

So how can I get rid of the veil that turns the goodness of the Creator into evil? To do this I ask: “Correct me! But not so that I will get rid of the unpleasant feelings, on the contrary, they help me, and spur me. Without them I wouldn’t even think about something else. They focus me on You, on the source of something that seems bad. Therefore, I am asking for help in order not to feel that something bad stems from You.

I don’t want to be behind the “filter,” but in front of it, in direct contact with you. Not in order to feel good, but in order to know you better. I want to bless you, but now because I have no choice, I curse you. My body screams because of that; “I feel bad and I curse the source of evil. But You gave me the feeling that the evil stems from You. You are playing with me by using hints, half revealed and half concealed. But I don’t want to curse You anymore.”

Question: Where is the group here? I can also ask for all that without the group.

Answer: Try. If you start, you will be confused and you will discover that the true plea is only possible in the group. There you are protected from making mistakes; there you really turn to the Creator for correction despite your good and evil desires. Eventually the group allows you to see clearly what to ask for, what it is that you actually want and whom it is that you actually turn to. That’s the whole idea.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/2/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Why don’t I keep the Creator in mind at all times?

Answer: You don’t remember the Creator because you don’t need Him. When you need someone, you keep thinking about them. Our ego easily does this.

Question: To what extent should it break me to make me actually remember Him? No matter what I do, nothing at all helps.

Answer: That’s not true. There is always a chance to add efforts to unite or to take care of friends in the group. I am talking about internal exertions here, the ones that do not depend on how busy one is or how much physical energy one has. Here is a sensitivity: We need to constantly try not to distance ourselves from the friends, keeping them in mind and disclosing our own future through them.

Question: At the congress we had an environment conducive to our internal work. We were given a taste from Above and now all that is left is for us to imprint it in our minds.

Answer: Isn’t it enough to wake you up?

Question: No, not at all, since we succumb to our desires.

Answer: Really? Now, you still remember the state you were in and feel a little sorry that it is gone. So, can you make yourself take certain actions? Can’t you obligate each other to enter into a union and begin mutual guarantee?

What will happen if you don’t? You should try. Then, you’ll see that you are helpless and will realize that you need the Creator to be your partner.

Demand Him! It was only after Moses reached the bottom that the Creator told him, “Let’s go to Pharaoh.”

Moses grew up in the Pharaoh’s house, was brought up there, he was a beloved prince; he was very successful through his strong egoism.

Now, he wants something opposite to it. He acts as if he doesn’t even know his grandfather and approaches him as if they were complete strangers, “We have nothing in common. You are the Pharaoh, and I relate to you as the Pharaoh, not as my grandfather.”

Question: But, the desire rejects such an approach. Even if we realize that we require a third factor, the desire won’t let us appeal to it.

Answer: Make a few more efforts, and you’ll discover that you really need the Creator. At this point, you don’t feel a necessity for Him; you don’t believe that He is capable of helping you, that He exists and has governance over everything there is, that He arranges everything in your life, that He hardened the heart of Pharaoh. You don’t connect one with the other.

Question: How can we fill this gap when our mind understands, but our desire still strives for a completely different thing?

Answer: Only your experience with this work with persistency and consistency will help you. If you are desperate, it is ready to go; if you can afford to sit and do nothing—primarily in your mind and heart—turn to your friends for help. Find someone who is still alive and hot, those who are ready to come to the rescue. Seek your guiding point, Moses, who is connected to the Creator.

Nothing can be done; it’s impossible to go against desires. However, we have to mobilize such a force and means which seem to support the desire, but in the way of turning into its opposite.

Question: How do we do that? Theoretically, it is very clear, but in reality?

Answer: There is not enough clarity. We must continue to work to destroy our desire, to break the desire. Why would we even want to break a wall? When bashing against the wall, you will suddenly become smarter, and you will understand how to approach the Creator and ask Him to help you.

Rest assured that He will destroy the resistance, although, at this point, you are not referring to Him, nor do you understand how important it is, even though you apply certain efforts to unite with your friends. So far, your losses are not big enough to make you scream to Him.

Instead, you step aside as if you have poorly invested a hundred dollars, and even though you are not happy about your loss, you still are ready to lose this much money. What would you feel if you had invested everything you have, all your property? Then, you wouldn’t be able to step back and would do everything in your power to regain success.

It’s not about quantity, but quality. Suddenly, after you knocked on your friends’ hearts and made every possible effort to connect with them, you find out that you cannot continue your exertions any longer. And yet you go on more and more, and when it’s really unnerving, in this very point, you reveal the Creator: “Now I demand for Him to connect us. I already feel the overall system and the evil inclination, mutual hatred. And there I want to reveal the Creator. I can see Him; he arranges it all, it is He who deliberately hardened the heart of Pharaoh. And now I will oblige Him to act.”

Even if you understand what I’ve just said, you still won’t be able to oblige Him right away. It’s essential that you line up your desires and intentions in a more or less correct order. The Creator wishes you good, doesn’t He? However, He needs a complete vessel full of corrected desires.

Question: Does it mean that I just have to keep hitting the same point over and over again?

Answer: It’s not that simple, the point that you are pursuing constantly varies. Each time it’s a little bit different, more profound, more interconnected with all the other points. After all, you are constantly advancing.

Question: What do I do with the harm that I bring to my friends while I pursue my path?

Answer: You only bring good to them since you try adding something that is above your desires to the unity. So, why do you call it harm?

Question: It’s because, in my thoughts, I don’t take care of my friends continuously throughout the day.

Answer: It happens this way because the Creator intentionally brings up all sorts of obstacles on your way. It’s He who hardens your heart, the Pharaoh’s heart, although you still apply effort on top of it, like Moses who disagrees with the Pharaoh. It’s your effort, whereas the hardening of the group’s heart comes from the Creator. So, why are you upset? Everything is fine!

Question: I know that I must give my friends much more, but I can’t.

Answer: Everything—including the Pharaoh (the evil inclination), hatred among friends, and the group with the potential to love in the future—is the Creator. He presents Himself in various shapes to attract you and make you connect with Him.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/25/12, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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A very strong congress has just ended; we feel tired, indifferent, sleepy, as if a heavy cloud embraces us and converts us into pessimistic elderly people.

The Creator took our egoistic desire away, the fuel that pulled us ahead. Before, we were burning with desire; we strove to get spiritual rewards and were ready to fight to attain spirituality. Each one of us considered himself a hero, although we felt like “supermen” only because our egoism was quite “hot” and was pushing us towards new achievements.

The Creator wants to help us; thus, He takes our egoism away so that we replace it by another power. Now, instead of being pushed from behind, we get inspired by the greatness of the goal and are hauled forward by it.

Now, we really have an opportunity to move ahead, but instead we complain that we do not have any energy or desire any more. Do you remember how “hot” and huge your desire was? However, it was not yours; it was given to you from Above. You were simply pushed from Above, and as a result brought to the group of Kabbalists.

At this time, your desire disappeared and you think that it’s better to leave the group and drop Kabbalah since it doesn’t attract you any longer. Do you really think that if it doesn’t appeal to you any more, it means that there is something wrong with Kabbalah? Everybody judges to the extent of their own corruptness. It’s obvious that without motivation one cannot advance. Even machines cannot work without fuel.

One should turn to the group, the books, and the study; he should demand help from them! Plead to the Creator!

If you have no power for this kind of appeal, it means that you experience deficiency of the general force, mutual guarantee. If there are friends of yours who lost their “life-force,” you should at least cry for them; it’s as if you are at their funeral; mourn over the wonderful friends that you lost! Look at the heavy tombstones that lie on their chests, that is, the stony hearts that they cannot rid themselves of.

At some point they were shining with a desire, but now we can only cry for them. Soon, you yourself will descend into the same pit. However, if we are ready to help each other before it happens, we’ll be able to rise from any kind of downfall. Not only will we be able to overcome our indifference, we will cope with genuine hatred should it arise among us.

Only the power of the group can initiate a desire out of “thin air.” At this time, we don’t have this kind of desire, nor can it emerge from anywhere. However, we have to “ignite” it artificially, as if we are starting a new business and advertise our new goods. It should become our common spiritual business; as a result, it will trigger such a strong need in us that we will simply be “burning” with desire. Underneath this desire, there can be nothing at all!

People are waiting all night long at the doorsteps of the stores to buy a 5th generation iPhone. Learn how to advertise your “goods” by escalating artificial needs. After all, the goal that we pursue also seems “artificial” to our egoism.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: This convention seems to have opened a new door for us and everything that we do seems tasteless from here, as if we have lost all its previous juiciness.

Answer: So why haven’t you asked for it?! You are constantly saying: “We! We!” so why didn’t you all ask together?!

Question: I feel that this is a new state in which I still don’t know how to ask. It is as if we’ve touched something, but we haven’t processed it enough yet so that we can actually fulfill it.

Answer: You are not asked to put your request in nice elaborate words. A father understands a simple cry.

Question: So why haven’t we asked?

Answer: Because you cannot unite and support one another. There are still different calculations that control you: shame, lack of readiness; in short, there is no true decisiveness yet, when you simply break through without any calculations.

Question: Where does the shame that doesn’t let me break through come from? We speak so much about closeness and unity, but I know that there are still locks in my heart, limitations that dictate what is allowed and what is forbidden.

Answer: It is because the Creator is still far from you; at the moment you don’t feel that He is close. You have to try harder to imagine Him in the form of the unity of the group, which is actually what we have started this week. The “Creator” is the essence of the outcome of our unity. This is what we have to pray for and turn to.

In any case, we need an outcry, a prayer, a request that is free of any calculations. If you cannot reach that it means that you are still far from the Creator or that the Creator is far from you.

But all the complaints are also justified and helpful. The more you complain the better. They will lead to the right and accurate calculation.

I think that this time we’ve taken a big step forward. It isn’t just a step; we’ve actually stepped inside and delved into clarifications, opening our hearts wide, although we haven’t scraped off its peel with an “iron brush.” It is indeed a good clarification: We have begun to sense, to feel, where this unity actually is, how we discover the AHP of the upper, a higher level, how we identify it, how do we all adhere to it so that it will raise us, and what is the relationship we have with it.

We’ve been through many things that relate to connection and unity, and although they seem very sublime, distant, and abstract, they will gradually come together in our feeling. Then it will be easier for us to turn to them and to fulfill them.

I think that this convention is very deep and has brought us the deepest most intensive clarification. It is meant for people who are actually only two steps away from entering spirituality. I am very happy that thanks to the feeling in the group here and throughout the world I can speak in a way I never have before.

Question: What should the right request be?

Answer: “Open the gate for us!”

It is at the time you feel that all the roads are blocked, that all the gates are locked, that you cry out. This is the 50^th gate, the desirable state we spoke about and read so much about. Now you are feeling it in practice, and only the collective prayer is missing, the pressure, the persistence. Try, make an effort, it will come…

I am very happy about the states we have been through.
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From the Convention of Unity, Day Two 9/21/12, Lesson 4 

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Imagine that you come to the lesson and your arm hurts badly; you will think about the pain all the time, of course. It will interfere with your studying and will cause great discomfort; you won’t know how to get rid of this pain and you won’t be able to forget it.

The question is how should we feel the same pain for not having reached the end of correction yet, for not having reached our ultimate goal? I don’t want to wait a single day! If it is so important to me, I am burning with impatience, like a baby –I want it now and right away!

The problem is that I don’t want what I should want. Where can I get the right desire from? This is a reason for a prayer.

I see no rush to connect with the friends and to reach the love of others in order to reach the spiritual goal. These are problems on top of other problems that set many obstacles before me one after the other. If I really wanted to reach the goal, I would love the friends; after all, it is unattainable without them. But the point is that I don’t need this goal: Does anyone want to give? And so I don’t need the friends and I don’t want to pay for the goal by love of others. It all seems very distant, foggy and unrealistic. I sit in front of the book during the lesson thinking: “What am I doing here anyway?”

So we are given a tool called the Torah in which there is the force that brings us to the goal. For us this is the upper level from which the force called the Light comes and pulls us forward. This is what we have to think about during the lesson just as you think about the arm that hurts and which you want to heal.

It doesn’t matter what you are reading at the moment, you have to think about your “illness” and to dream about the healing. If you don’t have a deficiency for that, ask that it will be given to you, connect to the friends, check which desires they have.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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The group is my Creator. If we are in a corrected connection, and I suddenly fall from this connection and am outside it and alone, then a difference is created, a gap (Δ) between myself and general unity. Thus, for me, this connection is the upper level, the Creator, my savior. Thus I turn to Him, pray, and ask that He take me back. I want to be integrated in Him, to adhere to Him.

The Kabbalists tell us that there was a descent of the worlds from the world of Ein Sof (infinity) until the level of this world, and now I need to gradually return through rising through the levels. But I don’t know anything about it. I only know one thing, that there is me and my upper. What is the upper? I don’t know either. For me It is limitless. I don’t understand or feel It. I only know that there is something higher above me.

I have one, unique way to imagine the upper to myself, and that is the form of the group. This is since it is a complete system in which everyone is connected together (Σ). It turns out that this is my upper level according to its properties and definition.

So you ask, “And where is the Creator, the upper force, the Light?” Indeed, within this system the Creator is revealed, the upper force. I feel Him there. This Light is discovered in our Kelim (desires) as impression in the attributes that they acquired.

When our desires begin to connect in all kinds of connections, impressions that we call Light will appear in them, but it’s not the Light itself, but some kind of vibrations in the soul that It invites. You measure these vibrations and determine them as the Light of Ruach. And other vibrations will already be the Light of Neshama or the Light of Haya.

I attain only myself, but from the actions of the Creator in me, I will know Him. What I feel within the connection, I give it a name the “Light’’ and ‘’upper world.’’ What I feel outside the connection is called “the lower world’’ and my ‘’I.’’

The group are not the faces I see in front of me, but its inner model, our connection, that exists invisible to my sight. There is a group that is in unity and in the state of Gmar Tikkun (the final correction) and there is the image that I see, human beings as such.

What I see depends on me. But actually, the group exists in a corrected form; I need to believe that in faith above reason. The Creator says: ‘’I brought you to a good place. You need to become adjusted to it, to connect to it, to bow your head before them. I brought you to such a place in which I will be revealed, if you buy it!”
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/16/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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It is very important to take part in the conventions and meetings that we hold since this attack really advances a person and allows him to get closer and to connect to others.

There are people who even find it very hard to sit among others and they count the hours until all this is finally over and they will be able to go home. But it is important to feel even such situations deeply, since it is a very good way to learn. We should only try not to get stuck in this state for a long time and to move forward as quickly as possible. Everything is determined according to how you subdue yourself before the environment.

We shouldn’t think that we are advancing only during these attacks when we are under the influence of the powerful environment, subduing ourselves before it, since we have no choice. It is possible to advance even faster during the usual daily lesson. In every lesson a very strong Light is revealed to us, even stronger than during the convention.

The whole point is that during the lesson we cannot hold on to the same sharpness of the senses and devotion in the same intensity. During the congresses the special actions, the special conditions, and the feeling of the attack, influence us. During the daily lesson it is a continuous war.

We have to build up power during the convention, the power we have attained during the attack, but later we have to fulfill it day by day and to understand that these are the true conditions of the war. During the lesson we are in a daily war, until we finally reach the true prayer.

I have to constantly examine myself and constantly keep the three conditions of the prayer. There is nothing but a prayer, a request, which includes the feeling of how great the Creator is, a self-check of whether I did everything possible, and of whether I am really devoted to the goal with all my soul and value it more than life itself. In order to do that I must constantly examine myself since everything that is connected is the essence of my attitude to the upper, to the higher level, to the unified system.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/23/12, Shamati #209

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Three conditions of a prayer are the conditions that enable us to unite with the next degree: GE of the lower with AHP of the upper. They demonstrate the loyalty of the soul that is required and disappointment in one’s own strengths, dedication to the upper One, faith in the greatness of the higher degree, and the feeling of one’s worthlessness that allows one to cancel himself.

This refers to the faith in the greatness of the upper One, which fully depends on the influence of the environment. A person is unable to reach it on his own. The need for the upper One only depends on the environment because a person is not able to develop a need to bestow on his own. This is an abstract goal that contradicts his nature, and this is why it can come only from the environment that rules over him.

Only the environment can give me the strength that will allow me to rise above my body and decide that death is better than a life without the quality of bestowal, without a spiritual sensation, so that I would agree to bestow instead of receiving, no longer wishing to continue living in my egoism. The ability to carry out these three conditions depends on a person’s loyalty to his environment, on the environment’s ability to convince him of these values.

He is unable to develop this attitude on his own, and, even if he mentally and logically understands that the books state that such are the conditions of the spiritual world, he still will be unable to come closer to them. The environment was given the power to influence us in order to help us attain the perfect system, the quality of bestowal, to come out of ourselves and connect with other broken souls.

It is a known fact that when getting into the wrong crowd, a child who was formerly good and well-mannered in a short time becomes a criminal, and he even becomes the worst of them all since he uses the education he has received for the worst. Conversely, a good environment can correct a former offender, even though this is more difficult to do.

What is special about an environment that strives toward a spiritual goal and connection is that the Light from a higher degree helps it. It performs the actual action of lifting us from the plane where we now exist.

We wish to connect in order to become like the higher degree, and this is why we attract the Light that Reforms. Similarity to a higher degree represents a great connection between us, and, when we wish to connect with the purpose of pleasing the Creator, to materialize His desire to reveal Himself to the creatures, our connection receives an unnatural power from the higher degree.

This power depends on our drive to connect despite the fact that we are unable to attain it. In regular life, it is very easy to connect for the sake of an egoistic goal. There is absolute unity and loyalty in a criminal mafia, but we are unable to accomplish it, and, naturally, we will not be able to do it until the Light corrects us.

However, we attract the Light that Reforms with just a single desire to attain this. The group becomes the source of the upper force, which has an indirect effect like the Surrounding Light. This is not yet the Direct Light of a spiritual degree, but, time after time, when the Surrounding Light influences us in response to our attempts to connect, it helps us bit by bit, gradually building our connection.

In this way, through our mutual efforts when we operate from below and the Light operates from above, we finally attain the first contact with Him. This Light robes in our vessel, and we reveal our first spiritual degree.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/23/12, Shamati #209

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