Question: How can I tell that my prayer to the Creator is correct?

Answer: The right prayer is when you don’t ask for the obstacle to go away, but to see the goodness and usefulness in it. You have to rise above the disturbance and understand that it is leading us to ascent, progress, advancement toward the goal, and there are no accidental, irrelevant forces in it. “There are no criminals in the king’s castle”—everyone in this world are His devoted servants, whom He uses to lead you to correction.

If you ask for your attitude to what is happening to change and it doesn’t, that means your plea is still artificial and superficial, and is still egoistic inside. That is, you still haven’t completed this request to the full measure, which is necessary for the request to become valid and bring about your correction. There is still some dirt or egoistic benefit mixed up with it. Therefore, the Creator either replaces one obstacle after another in front of you, or He beats you with the same obstacles, and this can go on for years, until you finally understand.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/23/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: You said that we have to play actively in front of each other that we are at the next degree, so that others envy and follow us. How can this be expressed? Should we simply be good, kind, helpful, smiling and this will excite and draw the friends? Or should we be firm in relation to the goal? How should I show this in order to cause maximum envy?

Answer: We are in the world of Infinity, the full connection with each other. The only problem is that we do not perceive it. We are like blind kittens. We need to begin to feel where we are in reality through our properties.

That is why the 125 spiritual degrees are called the rungs of revelation, the revelation of what you exist in. But you are underdeveloped and don’t feel that. Here now, as if in the same space (although not actually in the same space, but in other dimensions), there are plenty of various phenomena, objects, relationships, and actions. We feel none of this; it is outside of our senses.

Some people, including psychics, sense this a little. In fact, it is so. Bedouins living in Israel feel what’s going on 100 miles from them according to various manifestations of nature. But all this is at the level of our world. Psychics like Wolf Messing feel a little higher of course, outside of time, because the next degree raises man above time, etc.

That is, we play the next higher level, thus wanting to attract the forces of nature to ourselves so that they pull us towards it. We do the same thing in our lives; people play: I want to be like someone, for example, like scientists or musicians, I play this, do exercises, and thus come closer to them.

Why do the exercises pull me towards this? Because I’m attracting the same upper Light, only at our egoistic level. This is a physical law: If I aspire to something, these forces of aspiration realize everything. Therefore, we must become inspired to play.

But most importantly, we have to desire this inside ourselves because initially we are connected with each other, and if I want something, our desires concentrated together and directed at the same state will lead us to it.

That is why there are people who are dancing in front of you with a harmonica and inspiring others, and there are those who are standing modestly on the side and cannot even join the circle or sing along with everyone else; there are different people, it doesn’t matter. Externally, we must also show this for our friends in order to be inspired together. But the most important thing is an internal aspiration.
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From Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 1

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Question: How is it possible to precede the acts of the Creator each time and to become more rigid in relation to the ego so as not to surrender to its treacherous schemes, and on the other hand, to be sensitive to the hints of the Creator?

Answer: Don’t think about the ego under any circumstances, not of how to surrender to it or the opposite. All of these games with the ego won’t help. It is more cunning than you and everyone else.

Egoism is a very strong nature that is completely opposed to the Creator and is equal to Him in its intensity. The entire egoistic system was created by the Light entering into the desire, which made its nature and all its attributes in all of its forms. Thus, the struggle against the ego won’t help at all! It is only rising above it and having the desire become similar to the Light that will help! But to face the ego head on is hopeless.

You don’t need to pay attention to it! Only yearn to move ahead! Don’t wait until it pushes us from behind.

Question: What should you do if you constantly think about this, and at the last moment forget about the ego and also about the Creator?

Answer: That is because there is no connection with the group and the environment doesn’t help you go forward.

Here there is a very simple system of forces. From the beginning you are given a point to lean on, you are given direction, pushes. It is said that the Creator puts your hand on good fate and tells you: “Choose this.” And then you choose.

Baal HaSulam writes, for this person it is constantly said to choose an environment for yourself that is stronger and stronger, one that will strengthen you, and in which you will not fall and not forget the goal.

The choice of a strong environment depends only on your investing in it. You don’t need to change people, you need to invest in them more, and then you will feel a greater influence from them. This is the point of choice of the new environment. It is not a matter of faces of people, but to what extent you can take from them that same upper energy that is in them, but they themselves don’t even know about it.

If it doesn’t succeed, then it’s a sign that you need to yearn to attain this. There is nothing to do. The work is only in that.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/16/12, Preliminary Lesson

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Question: What are we waiting for, what should we hope for, for all the friends who devote themselves for the convention?

Answer: You should hope to connect as a result of all your efforts that should be absorbed with the intention to unite. There are all the necessary conditions for that in the world today.

Every day articles by scientists and researchers, economists and politicians are sent to me about the globalization of the world and the mutual connections in it. They are actually using our words, although they don’t say everything since they don’t understand how they can change the situation in society. They do understand, however, that the world will have to reach unity, harmony, integrality, etc.

We are in an unprecedented state. We have been given a chance to change the world by uniting, and what is more, it is given to us in a country where the wisdom of Kabbalah has developed for many years and where today, too, there are the strongest groups and most faithful students. We can cause the force that we will discover among us to really help the whole world reach the Creator through it.

This is called a trinity: We, each of us, through the group, through all of us, through the world Kli (vessel), and after us the world community, yearn for the Creator and connect. This means that we, all the friends throughout the world, together with all of humanity, and the Creator make one general whole. This general whole should be revealed, felt, and created, since it doesn’t exist at the moment!

I do hope that our preparation will serve that.
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From a Virtual Lesson 8/12/12

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Question: How can we check what our intention is while reading The Zohar?

Answer: The Book of Zohar is the source of Light that comes to us if we want to use it correctly. Thus, while studying Kabbalistic books, I always summon some illumination upon me, but it comes according to the intensity of my efforts and my readiness. If I study in order to gain something corporeal or to gain the next world as a personal privilege, then the Light, by its influence, creates in me even greater darkness. I grow further away from the understanding of what this system was given to me for, what I have to do with myself, and how I should treat others. Even when I read wonderful words about love and connection, I don’t feel a sense of belonging anymore, I don’t see the connection and I don’t know how to perceive the text: Whether to let it enter my heart or not, this means that I study like a bat that is nourished by the night and doesn’t expect the dawn.

But if I try to connect with others and this is the reason I learn the method, by keeping and observing the condition for accepting it at Mt. Sinai, yearning together with everyone else to be “as one man in one heart,” to enter mutual guarantee, to attain brotherly love and through it the love of the Creator, then the Light begins to advance me. This isn’t the ordinary path that is overcome in stages anymore, but I gradually begin to discover the bad shattered state in it.

The egoistic study conceals my ego from me, and I see myself as righteous. On the other hand, by the right study, I discover that I am immersed in evil. The first thing that the Light reveals to me is my evil attributes, and I have to work accordingly. By discovering the evil, I feel even worse feelings than before. So what can I do? After all, according to my nature I want to escape when I feel bad.

Perhaps I should stop studying and withdraw from the group? Perhaps I should feel despair? Or perhaps I should be happy that I was allowed to discover the recognition of evil? It should be a law for me, an invitation: If I can rise above this unpleasant feeling, I will yearn for bestowal above receiving.

I prefer to receive a blow, since the sufferings that are revealed in my ego show me that I don’t work for it. Although I experience unpleasant feelings, I overcome them and aim at unity. I don’t escape in order to sweeten the bitterness; I don’t close myself, I don’t descend, and I don’t stop studying. On the contrary, I accept all the troubles that come from every direction on the way to unite with the friends, as being sent by the Creator and that there is nothing besides Him.

I accept every state as beneficial for my advancement. I don’t want to annul them and I continue to study in order to neutralize the bad feeling. I actually want it; I want it to stay since it focuses me exactly on how to rise above it, to be above reason. I gladly accept all the problems and interruptions, the pressure of the circumstances, the external mockery, the different sufferings, since they all help me focus on the goal correctly, creating such limitations, such frameworks, that by working within them I undoubtedly advance forward.

Thus build inside me the vessels of bestowal above the vessels of receiving. They continue to grow and to suffer, while I, being one level above them, want to hold on to the connection with the Creator until I attain full faith, the attribute of Bina, and begin using my vessels of receiving in order to bestow.

But then too I don’t intend to calm myself, since I have risen to such a degree that there should be no thought of complacency. On the contrary, I yearn more and more upwards and am even ready to receive pleasure, but not in order to fill myself, but in order to fulfill the Creator’s desire.

This is all our work. Along this path I need a real source, an egoistic desire that provides me with the force of bestowal thanks to my overcoming the problems and the sufferings that are revealed in it, and it’s clear to me that it all comes from the Creator.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/12, The Book of Zohar

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Question: The subject of one of the lessons of the convention is “The Prayer of the Many.” This lesson is about how one comes to the prayer not for oneself, but for society.

Answer: The Prayer of the Many is a request to correct the broken vessel, the shattered common soul. If we form this request correctly, we definitely get a response because the request that passes through the common vessel acquires the properties, the format, that is perceived by the Light. Thus, we must learn how to connect with each other in such a way that, through this template, through the group, everyone’s request reaches the Creator correctly.
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From a Virtual Lesson 8/12/12

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The desire to receive cannot change anything except its intention. Imagine that your arms and legs are tied, what can you do? Nothing depends on you except your intention, similarly there is no other way the desire to receive can act.

It only knows how to receive, so let it receive and do the only thing it can do. The point is that sometimes it receives with the intention for itself and sometimes it closes itself and refuses to receive.

But how can I refuse to receive if my mouth is constantly open? How can I close myself? Only by my intention! If I don’t consider what I receive as receiving since it doesn’t bring me pleasure, it isn’t considered receiving any more.

Although I really want this filling, I don’t enjoy it since the desire was given to me by nature, but I don’t enjoy by the power of my recognition. The action of my desire to receive is to change the attitude to itself, to decide how to work with the desire.

To the extent that the Light influences me by allowing me to rise above my desire, I decide what to do with it: to restrict my desire or to allow myself to receive a little in order to enjoy. But what should I enjoy for? I may decide to enjoy for myself or for bestowal. It may be a necessary act of receiving which is not condemned or praised.

It all depends on what I enjoy for: in order to bring pleasure to the host, to the Creator, or in order to bring pleasure to myself. It may be that we both need to receive pleasure. If we connect like two loving friends, we enjoy the fact that we give to one another, which means the fillings or the connection between us.

We can have many such thoughts and decisions, but they are all related to the intention. I cannot change anything more than that: my mouth is open, my arms are tied—this is what my desire to receive looks like. Everything is solved only in “faith above reason,” in our thoughts. It is only about the actions that are below the Masach (screen).

Only my attitude to what happens to me counts, and it is the only thing that matters. I correct my attitude to what is going on until it becomes exactly like the Creator’s. This means that we have reached full adhesion with Him.

By that you will feel how important our intention is. Only our intention belongs to the level of the speaking. We measure our level according to the power of our intention.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/5/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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When reading The Zohar, we are facing the Light that is capable of everything. The Creator makes Light and He makes darkness; He raises and lowers. He does everything. If so, then the problem is only us: We are unable to ask Him for the right thing. The Light has no problem bringing us anything we could possibly desire, even in our greatest and most exorbitant fantasies. It has no problem. It is a force that contains everything and its possibilities are infinite.

So what should we really ask for, coming from our desire rather than deception? And how can we form that desire? Say, I come to a toy store and, like a small child, my head starts spinning: I want this, and that, and a third and fourth thing.

How do I choose the only, best, most useful and necessary thing from everything I see before me? How do I entrench myself in my desire in order to ask precisely for this, and to do it in such a way that I will receive it? If I demand the right “toy,” then I will receive it. But if I ask for something else, which is not entirely for my own good, then I won’t receive it. Let us ask for this from the Light as well, for it to help us choose.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/12, The Zohar

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Question: What can I do for the group while reading The Book of Zohar?

Answer: Connect with everyone and to be in the same intention. Rabash says that all the sparks in the hearts of the friends unite into one big flame of love. Therefore, we should try to connect all the small desires, passions, inclinations, and intentions.

There is a great difference when there are thousands of people with us here and all over the world connecting by reading the text and thinking about how to connect with spirituality, and the fact that each one thinks about it separately.

If everyone’s separate request rises, it is a lie. It isn’t a lie in the corporeal sense when people deceive one another, wanting to use one another, which is natural.

Here it is about you wanting to relate to the Creator falsely. What does that mean? If you do it alone, then you undoubtedly do it since it is your nature. However, if you do it by connecting to others, you are already giving up something, you take them into account and you cooperate mutually.

So if millions of people yearn for spirituality, but separately, the outcome is very weak and is practically negligible, although they make efforts, study, and do something. We can see this in those who study the revealed Torah.

If we connect by wanting to attain spirituality by mutual bestowal, we are immediately in equivalence of form with spirituality, and if you ask for something, your request immediately arrives in a vessel of bestowal, since it goes through the connection. Accordingly it evokes the Light that will return to you from the Creator, the Light that Reforms.

So to yearn for the goal by yourself is a waste of time. These are futile attempts. To yearn ten times less but through the connection with others is a million times more efficient.

This means that our work is not quantitative but qualitative, better less but with the right intention.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/9/12, The Book of Zohar

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The upper can help the lower under the condition that the lower is trying to unite with the upper. But it is impossible to unite alone with the upper because adhesion means that you wish to bring the corrupted vessel of bestowal to Him for Him to correct it, because we are corrupted.

But when do I feel this way?—When I wish to unite with someone and am incapable of it. Then I take this broken vessel and say to the upper: “Correct it!” He corrects it, and then I acquire a whole vessel with a certain degree of bestowal. I perform an action in it—actual connection in a corrected vessel—and then I attain a spiritual degree.

In other words, I had a small broken glass. I asked the upper one to fix it and He corrected it; in other words, He has given me strength to glue this glass together to make it whole. Now I can fill this glass by performing an act of bestowal, and I will fill it. This means that I have reached the level of Nefesh de-Nefesh of the World of Assiya.

And once again I turn to my friends, the group, and once again I analyze my lack of desire to continue to advance, I analyze how broken my vessel is. And once again I ask the upper one to correct it. But I must give Him something to correct. Otherwise, what will I bring to Him, what is my request? I must come and cry about the broken vessel, like a small child comes and cries over a broken cup. And then the upper one will correct it, and once again I fill the corrected vessel with the bestowal I desired and I attain the next spiritual degree, Ruach de-Nefesh of the World of Assiya. In this way I ascend the 125 degrees.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/7/12, The Zohar

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