Question: What is love above the ego?

Answer: First by the efforts a person makes in the group, in the study, in using all the options, he should value the attribute of bestowal very highly. A person goes through many states of giving and bestowal that he isn’t aware of at all, as he feels himself as “dead.” He can be in opposing states, wanting only to receive, or feel disappointed about the way or the opposite, meaning to be in high spirits. But a person should rise above all these opposite polar states. There is the state itself and I rise above it. The state was sent from Above by the Creator who thus wants to check how we respond and rise above every state.

A person usually feels indifference and disrespect. But if he says that he doesn’t want to believe what he sees and starts doing something about regaining his inspiration, the sensitivity, the feeling of vitality in bestowal, his special attitude towards his correction, meaning above the indifference and the disrespect, then he will gradually draw upon himself the Light that Reforms.

I begin to value the attribute of bestowal, the advancement towards the Creator, towards His revelation, the states that are above this world. If I already value this and aspire to bestow, I have a vessel. I want to feel that I’m lost within the attribute of bestowal, that I value it more than anything. Why did this suddenly happen? This is how the upper Light bestowed upon me and now I want to have this attribute too.

The question is also why do I want it? I may feel that I’ll feel better with it, that it will free me of all troubles and worries. Is it bad to feel that I don’t belong to this world? Many people want to detach themselves from it.

So I should check the reason why I’m doing this. The upper Light stimulates me and inserts the appreciation of bestowal into me, but what kind of bestowal, perhaps egoistic bestowal? I check myself with the help of the group and the friends, to see whether I can, with the help of my apparent aspiration for the attribute of bestowal, attain it and feel it. Do I want to bestow in order to bestow upon others, or am I doing this in order to receive something: respect or appreciation? I check all this within the group.

Why do I do that? So that I’ll feel good? No! So that others will feel good? Yes! But do I know that it’s so and that inside I don’t actually hope to get something in return? I check it by asking whether I aspire to bring the Creator pleasure through the friends. Here my true distant goal has to be revealed. I suddenly discover that I want to direct all my actions of bestowal towards the Creator.

But here too I still have to clarify things, since to bestow upon the Creator is undoubtedly worthwhile. After all, He will certainly understand, discover and pay me for my loyalty, and if I reach this, my whole life is filled with different priorities. But no! I want to bestow so that the Creator knows nothing about it and only in order to be in the attribute of bestowal.

I examine my actions according to the extent that I can rise above my egoistic desires. If I don’t constantly examine myself as to how to raise bestowal above receiving, I’ll not be able to hold on to bestowal under any circumstances. I must constantly check what I have gained and what I have lost and whether I can ignore my losses. This means, whether I can receive a filling and be above this.

I have constant calculations in my desires to receive as to what extent I can remain in true bestowal. One is based on the other. After all, there is no way to assess whether or not you are doing this for yourself, in the vessels of bestowal, in the aspiration to bestow, but only if under all this there are desires to receive which I restrict to build upon them a Masach and the Returning Light, which means my actions of bestowal.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/5/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What does it mean to ask the Creator?
Answer: Asking the Creator means that you are aware of the power that operates in the entire creation, you realize that you depend on it, and no one but It acts. You begin to feel that indeed this power exists, operates, and manages everything; then you have whom to turn to and with what.

To do this, you need to reveal that it is not you who acts, but He, for good or for evil, in which He acts, He does what you need that He would do. And He causes you all possible evil, so that you pay attention to who you are, to what extent you are not capable of anything. This is what is revealed to the world in the current crisis.

And then you start to advance in this awareness and to learn on what you really depend until you reveal Him, firstly, as the evil because you feel bad. Then, you move slowly forward, you begin to grow wiser and realize that all this is for your own good, and even if you feel bad, you know that He acts on you in order to lead you to the good, as a teacher. And although in the earthly feelings you don’t think it is good, you start to recognize His properties, become aware of his actions and understand that they are good.

You identify with Him despite the bad feeling. And this gives you a new mind and feelings, the spiritual rather than the earthly ones. And although the body is suffering, you want to adhere to the plan of creation, for this purpose more than to your body. Then you ask Him to raise you, you are performing such acts, that this upper one gives you new values so that you adhere to His mind and feelings, to His plan, to everything that He does instead of remaining in your desire to enjoy. To the extent you are asking this, to that extent, the value of bestowal and love becomes higher than reception and rejection of others. Thus, you are advancing further and further.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/1/12, The Book of Zohar

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Striving forward towards the goal of creation, we discover destruction inside of ourselves. Conversely, those who do not strive forward do not discover destruction inside of themselves. In exactly the same way, one can reveal the malfunctions in an automobile only if one starts the car and tries to move it. Otherwise, everything seems to be in order. I have not yet found any problems inside of me, and I attribute evil to something else.

That is why only the one who strives towards the goal reveals destruction, only the one who strives towards unity of the group discovers how far away he is from that. Movement towards the good and striving for wellbeing brings us a bad feeling, the realization of evil.

What for? So that on the next level I would cry out asking for help, raise the MAN (prayer). And then I will receive changes, the qualities of bestowal. That is where movement occurs and not in anything else. One must check oneself in this.

So, I have been applying efforts, I was uniting with the group, and I wanted to be together with the friends in order to come out into the spiritual world, to arrive at bestowal, to the Creator. And what did I receive as an answer? The realization of evil: how much I do not want to go to the Creator, do not want to be in the group. I discover my true state; the truth comes out into the light.

If I put down my hands now, then I will miss the opportunity that this revelation presents. The Creator said: “I have created the evil inclination, I have created the Torah as a spice.” It means that now I am starting from the evil inclination, and up until now I carried out work in order to reveal it.

First of all, in order to reveal the evil, I must be connected to the group, the study, the Creator, and other means. As a consequence, the evil inclination has been revealed to me. Afterward, I address an appeal (MAN) for the Torah, spice, for the Light that Reforms concealed inside of it.

In reality, all of that is good. Since if we were to judge it from the point of view of bestowal, then the revelation of the evil is the essence of the good. But when will I attain revelation?

And then, the next state comes to me; I receive the answer of the One above to my appeal—MAD. This answer can be so great, that I will attain group connection and a vessel in which I will reveal the Light. Then the Light and the vessel will become bestowal, which I have attained after numerous similar actions.

This way, on the one hand, receiving, the evil inclination is always characteristic of me, but on the other hand, I get the force of bestowal, the Light.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/29/12, Writings of Rabash

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We only receive the recognition of evil from the Creator; in fact, He created only the desire to receive. The Light, the means that will help us correct our state, we must find within the environment.

The point is that the action from the side of the Creator is to give us the recognition of evil, and the action from the side of the creature is, after reaching the recognition of evil, to ask for correction. This is the work.

I don’t need anything from the Creator, only that He will disclose to me that I exist within evil. But it is only in the real evil, “the quality,” that I need to understand that I am lacking the attribute of bestowal and to feel bad because of that. All the rest will move by itself: Of course I will run to find help, I will cry, ask, and demand, until I force Him to correct me.

Thus, the task of the Creator is to reveal the evil, and my task is to demand from Him to transform the evil into good.

Question: How is it possible to increase the intensity of my request to the Creator?

Answer: The intensity depends on how bad you feel in your egoistic attributes. Everything moves only after the feeling; the intellect is useless here. Thus, I need to translate the situation to feeling: I feel bad that I exist in the desire to receive.

For example, I feel shame when people around me look at me with open disregard. I simply can only think: “How can I go on? Indeed, tomorrow, I will need to see them again.” So when I feel bad, I look for a way out.

But if you felt good and didn’t feel any shame, then you wouldn’t be able to approach correction. The ego is certainly provided for and someone’s talking out there doesn’t concern me. Words in themselves are powerless. I need to transfer them to that inner level where they will cause a response that I will really feel bad about the way they relate to me. The influence of the environment needs to control my own power of self-persuasion. In short, I need to feel shame. It brings me to “restriction,” to a request, to everything that will come later.

Question: How can one amplify this shame?

Answer: Through the power of thought.

Question: How can one amplify the thought?

Answer: By the power of persistence, by using perseverance.

Question: How can one increase the persistence?

Answer: Ask the friends to help you remember to think about it and the awareness of the importance.

Question: What if I forget to ask this from them?

Answer: Write them an email in advance so that they will support you.

Question: What if I forget to write the email?

Answer: It just cannot be that a person isn’t given an opportunity and isn’t given the end of the thread. He’s always able and needs to begin his path from something.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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The world is ruled by one force of bestowal. This force is called the Creator since He created the quality opposite to Himself, the desire to enjoy, in order to raise it to His level. In this way, this desire can bring itself to perfection.

That is why all of our work consists of reaching the quality of bestowal. However, we do not disappear into that, but we change the form of our desire, the initial material, to bestowing. It continues to act with all of its fierce strength and power with which it used to think only of itself before and is revealed as an unclean egoistic system, opposite to bestowal, but now this desire corrects itself and the form of its action. Now, instead of receiving, it desires to bestow.

Such a change happens due to the Light that Reforms. However, until such a change happens inside of the desire to enjoy, it absolutely does not understand what is being talked about here since it is completely located in egoistic qualities, meaning in thoughts and desires for oneself.

The change that it undergoes is truly a new birth, similar to how something develops from a drop of seed in which there is nothing besides internal information about a future person, and in the end, it finally turns into an independent personality which thinks, understands, feels, and answers for its deeds. Where does it all come from? Is it simply out of emptiness? However, in exactly the same way, our own spiritual birth happens.

This process is incomprehensible to us and hidden from us. Until we experience serious changes, we completely do not understand how all of that is being realized on matter, how the Light works, how it changes our qualities, and what is left for us from each of the levels from which we have ascended.

Man becomes confused and does not understand where he really is. It is said that the Creator is the first, and He is also the last. So, where is the human in this? Perhaps he is at least in the middle? There is an initial state of the world of infinity, and there is a final state, the return back to Infinity, and we are on the path somewhere in the middle between the former and the latter.

In addition, what can we add from ourselves to the Creator’s actions, with whom everything begins and ends? We only can speed up our development to show that we want to move toward being similar to the Creator and to not to be pushed from behind by suffering.

The Creator has created a desire to enjoy inside of me that feels the good and the bad in relation to itself, and, now, with the help of these good and bad feelings, He can control me! However, if I am controlled only by my pleasant and unpleasant feelings, then I am acting like an animal. If I want to move forward to that same goal through my own efforts, then I need to feel its importance, to receive the strength for development, acting against my nature.

I must rise above the egoistic perception of good and bad toward the perception of truth and falsehood, and consider them as the good and the bad. These forces must pull me forward, having replaced pleasure and suffering with themselves, by which I am being pushed from behind. This is called the level of a human, not an animal.

That is only possible to achieve by the means of an environment that instills into me such values, such an importance of truth and falsehood that provide the strength for my development. However, in order for that to happen, I must listen to the environment, meaning that all of my work on the attainment of the Creator and toward reaching the goal of creation—to rise from the natural feeling of good and bad toward reason, from the animal level toward the human level, from the perception of pleasure and suffering toward the perception of truth and falsehood—all of that is work with the environment.

My goal is to find an environment that has these goals and values, and to be impressed by it. Thanks to that, I will receive the strength to develop as a human and not as an animal since an animal moves only because it sees a sack of grain in front of it or if it receives blows from behind. However, a human considers pleasure and suffering to be the approaching or distancing of the quality of bestowal, the truth and the falsehood.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/27/12, Shamati #13, “The Eighteenth Prayer”

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Question: How does our connection become the basis for the revelation of the spiritual levels?

Answer: Every level is a world that you feel, a world that is woven by the connection among all the souls. The first connection that has come from the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) gradually diminished until it was shattered and became totally detached in our world. Now, from this point, the ascent in the same levels of connection begins, and it is the only thing you have to reveal.

The “matter” of the souls is the desire to receive and the connection among them is the system we study about. The Ten Sefirot, the spiritual Partzufim, are all the essence of different methods of mutual connection of the souls between them.

On the whole, a whole body is thus formed as we rise to Malchut of Ein Sof, and all the connections are 100% bestowal without any obstacles and deficiencies. Then all the resistance in the transition among us disappears and the connection is immediately fulfilled in infinite speed. This is the state of Ein Sof.

The adhesion indicates a simple thing: What I have at a certain moment, you have too, and vice versa. This communication is unlimited. It isn’t confined to time and the resistance of the ego. The “resistor” among us disappears and our desires cooperate freely and to their full extent.

Question: How should it be expressed in the workshops?

Answer: Our adhesion during the workshops is an effort: We want to unite so strongly, as much as we can imagine, so that each one will lose his feeling of self and we will feel one desire, one thought, one whole. By these efforts, from the point of unity, we think about a solution to the question we were given by the teacher. The solution is within the connection.

Therefore, during the workshop we yearn to find the answer through the unity. Each time we search for a solution, we want to attain it by the unity, without using our logic. After all, we are not going to logically examine the words of the Kabbalists.

Without connection, there is no point in sitting in a circle. So what do we need it for? For an intellectual conversation or a scientific debate? No, the mission is given only in order to create a new quality. Then by feeling the collective quality, you find the solution.

The workshop is only meant to create a collective vessel that belongs to an upper level. We try to reach it as hard as we can, but if there is no solution, it means that we have not succeeded.

There is no point mentioning the connection while we are in the process, it has to be the goal from the beginning. Can we come to a workshop not in order to connect, and in this connection find the next level or at least find the solution to the question that leads to it?
[83843]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/13/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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Question: For what level of preparation of students is the congress in Kharkov intended?

Answer: I think this is a congress of unity that depends not on the level of a person’s preparation, but on his aspiration. If he understands that he must attain the method of revelation of the upper world, advance towards it, make at least such a serious step, and perhaps even reveal the upper world for himself—it is possible since it depends only on our joint efforts—then he is a welcome guest, friend, and participant.
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Question: How can you check that you really understand the lesson from the point connection with the group?

Answer: A person reaches connection out of despair, when he despairs of all his actions and sees that they will lead to nothing, and that he must do something. He thinks about himself, about his entire life, about the efforts he has made in vain, and eventually comes to the conclusion that he only can attain the goal through the group.

The group is a spiritual structure and not the faces that you see around you. It is a spiritual force that is revealed in a very realistic manner, like some safe shelter. It is like a “flying saucer” that as I enter it, I have a chance to succeed and if I am not in it, I have no chance.

A person must understand this clearly in order to keep this thought. He should know that by staying in the group, which he sees as a collection of spiritual forces, he will undoubtedly reach a good result. The group enables him to breathe, and without it, he has no access to the oxygen hose.

However, a person only can reach this decision when he feels despair from his own powers. Our discussions and workshops enable us to reach this conclusion faster. However, what I hear are people speaking about what they have read and not from their hearts.

I give a short introduction, and then I ask a question about it. The question may be a continuation of what has been said; it can be in contrast to it or somehow related to what has been said. However, it is all done intentionally. The answer shouldn’t come from the mind, but from the point of connection that should be attained within the discussion circle.

Then, the answer will be the answer to our prayer. The discussion must turn into a prayer that we all want to clarify and, together, to find the answer. During the discussion, each of the ten friends says something, and thus we complete one another. Each one annuls himself before the others by raising them and respecting their opinion. Thus, we build our self-annulment and the attribute of bestowal that is above all of us.

The group is not a physical assembly, but it acquires a spiritual value. This is because the annulment of the ego and the desire to be incorporated in the friends is already a spiritual action. The topic of the discussion spurs us on to clarify our unity, the connection, and the work. All this turns into a prayer (MAN).

Within the connection in the group that we attain by this prayer, we must receive an answer (MAD). The answer to the prayer of many (MAD) is called the center of the group. We feel collective warmth, a collective feeling, the force that supports us to such an extent that we are scared to come out of there. I don’t want to come out of there. I want to remain inside this center and to grow there. This is the purpose of the workshop, which you have to try to attain with every 15-minute question discussion.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: How best can I prepare for the convention in Kharkov, Ukraine? What depends personally on me to make it most effective?

Answer: First, it is advisable to attend our classes because they are revolving around this topic.

Secondly, you should read the materials required for the convention that have been published in Russian and other languages. I am guided by the fact that the convention will be completely in Russian. Of course, there will be translation into other languages.
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Question: Which action is most effective?

Answer: An act with a stronger intention. An act without an intention for the sake of others is empty because it isn’t the physical act that bestows, but the intention that accompanies it: “Why was it performed?” or more precisely, “to whose benefit, mine, or others?”

Thus, if we perform all kinds of good acts and deeds, as benefactors, “the beautiful souls,” but without the correct intention in order to bring humanity to one identity that the Creator (nature) determined from the beginning in the root of our advancement, then all of our actions will completely fail because they won’t have the force of the Light, the one force that changes everything. If we make efforts without this force, we are performing only mechanical movements.

Thus we must, before performing any action, learn to perform the correct intention so that the action will invite the force of correction and in this way reach the desired result, which is the correction bringing betterment for humanity. But if we do something without an intention, then for that act there won’t be a correct and good result, and then it is preferred not to do it at all.

For example, protest actions, even though in the beginning it seemed that they would attain something, like lowering prices, etc., as the year continued there wasn’t a trace left of the lowering of prices, and people were just more and more disappointed and didn’t want to fight for themselves.

Thus we need to learn to perform acts that produce correct and desired results. This is what integral education is designated to do.
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