It doesn’t matter that you are sitting in rows behind the desks, and not embracing in a circle. Only the physical bodies are sitting on the chairs, but inside there must be the feeling of a circle: a great connection all over the world. Just like the women encircle us in a ring, so does the whole world stand further away, behind them. We should aspire to bring everyone to one point of contact.

The physical arrangement is meaningless. I don’t think that the pupils of Rabbi Shimon sat in such a symmetric circle. If it were so, the same rules would have been kept until today for the study of the Torah. A circle simply symbolizes the fact that everyone is equal—the friends connect and form a prayer of the many.

We only need to ask for the Light that Reforms. Without this, we have no chance whatsoever to exit our ego even by one millimeter—none of us. Only the Light that Reforms can help us.

Therefore, it is meaningless to ask about how you should do it. You are not doing anything, let the Light do the work! But you should be constantly aware that you need to perform all sorts of actions to draw the Light that will do everything.
[73816] 
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/27/2012, Shamati #52 

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Question: I don’t understand how a spiritual Partzuf can calculate to what extent it can receive in order to bestow if each time it discovers a new state in which it has never been before.

Answer: The spiritual Partzuf goes through new phases all the time. As it says: “They will be as new to you.” But it can perform different actions based on what was before. Thanks to what? Thanks to his asking the upper one to perform this action!

In our world, all the actions are also performed by the upper one, but you don’t think about it and you think that you are doing everything by yourself. But everything is done by the upper Light, and you are making a double mistake called double concealment.

In fact, you are not doing anything by yourself. Everything is done thanks to the mercy of the Creator, and we are not in charge of our actions, our decisions, and our calculations. You may feel doubtful and unsure as to how you will act in the spiritual world since you are used to feeling that you are in charge in this world and that everything depends on you. But here too, you never do anything or decide by yourself.

It only seems that you do; everything that you feel, decide, and carry out is fictional. Inside you there is a hand, like in a puppet, that constantly turns you, so relax.
[69750]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/13/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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We have justified claims: We are repeating the same thing over and over again when trying to unite. “When will this be over? When will we get what we want?” The answer is simple: When we won’t want it.

Rabash, “Shlavei HaSulam (Steps of the Ladder)” 1989, Article 12, “A Blessing and a Curse”: A person should know that every beginning of the work is called “day,” and a person’s prayer that the Creator brings him closer to the work is called “day.”

Thanks to our prayers and requests, thanks to the mutual relations we build between the Creator and us, we clarify and refine our right request, until it enables us to feel the spiritual world. “A prayer” is the work of the heart: polishing, purification, preparation. If we ask, demand, and scream, our prayer turns into a connection with the Creator, which has gone through the group and become a “prayer of the many.” This is the only way to reach Him.

When we arrange everything correctly, we constantly polish, clarify, and prepare our vessels of perception in order to feel spirituality in them. On the way we demand: “Give me!”, but gradually we begin to fine-tune our desires and demands, directing them towards bestowal, towards unification with the friends, towards distinguishing the form of general bestowal, the Creator, in this unity, who is revealed according to the principle of “come and see.”

And so gradually the mind and the feelings in our vessels reach the right parameters and enable us to feel the spiritual world. It exists here and now, and we are in it, but we don’t feel it.

Therefore, a prayer is a process in which we prepare our vessels for the spiritual perception.
[72037] 
From the Arava Convention 2/25/12, Lesson 7 

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Question: The convention is starting! What atmosphere should surround it during the final preparations?

Answer: We only need the sensation of unity, there is nothing else. We see from the example of the spiritual fetus that there is plenty of matter for its development, and only the form, which we take from the Light, from the Creator, is lacking. The more we want to assume the form similar to the Creator within the desire, depending on it, we will be called humans.

The desire to assume the form of man is called a prayer. And it is realized through our connection, when everyone wishes to unite so that everyone completes the other till the form of man, Adam.

And then it transpires that there are no unwanted or failing. If we connect everything given to us from Above correctly, we will perform our task and assume the human form. We have all the conditions for it now, and I really hope that we will not miss our chance.

Let everyone annul themselves before the friends, and then even the very beginner will be among others as a baby who does not interfere with them, and he will enter together with everybody. Babies are not left alone; they must be taken together! By annuling yourself before the rest, you obligate them to take care of you.
[73396]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/2012, TES 

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Question: We know that without preparation nothing will happen. But not every action indicates that we are really preparing for an attack. So what is the preparation?

Answer: When an athlete goes to the Olympics, his achievements clearly depend on his preparation. He practices intensively for several years in order to be as fit as possible.

How is it possible to ascend to the next level if there is no ladder attached to it, if we don’t prepare the necessary conditions, if we don’t reach the understanding and the recognition, and if we don’t change the attributes and the relations among us and our tendencies?

After all, you will take on a new form in the next degree, a new mold, a new schema, a new program. You will change everything inside you and acquire a new perception of the world. In ordinary life we also go through changes that change our perspective of the world, but it is nothing compared to the gap between the spiritual degrees.

It is impossible to manage here without preparation. What is more, without it you will not be able to bear the changes, you will not be able to create a basis for them. You have to prepare the “building blocks,” and the Light will come and connect them. You arrange all the necessary parts for the next degree, but you can’t connect them by yourself. But you consciously want this connection; you see and attain that these details need to be connected in a certain way, in order to become your system of bestowal upon the Creator, so that He will be revealed inside.

Although in the meantime it is just a plan, the Light comes and fulfills it. Then, you immediately discover the Creator in this schema.

Therefore, during the preparation, you should collect all the elements of the schema and understand how they should be connected. The fulfillment is done by the Light, while the request, your prayer to Him, ripens inside you.
[73387]

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The coming European convention is a great hope for connection and for being able to sense the revelation of the Creator in the connection among us, the revelation of the spiritual world. First, the Reforming Light that operates on us will connect us and we will feel the adhesion among us, which we attain in order to bring contentment to the Creator. Then according to the equivalence of form, it will be revealed in us and we will feel that “Israel (those who yearn for the Torah), the Torah (the Reforming Light), and the Creator, are one.”

We yearn for the union of all the souls into one soul that is filled with the upper Light, to feel it, to discover it and to live in it, first by ourselves because we already have the desire for it, and then to help the whole world attain it. Eventually everything that is revealed in our world—all the suffering, the crises and the troubles—are nothing more than forces that hasten the development of humanity towards this perfect state.

Therefore, when we yearn for this perfect state, we want to achieve two goals: love of the Creator and love of humanity. We want to bestow all the goodness that we achieve by our work and our attainment on both humanity and the Creator. After all, we are in the middle, between them, like the middle third of Tifferet that has nothing and doesn’t want anything for itself—Hafetz Hesed. We only enjoy bringing pleasure to humanity and through it, through all this general soul, to the Creator.

This is the vessel we have to prepare. This is the state we have to reach. Therefore, while reading The Zohar, we want to approach it. Let’s think about it!

If a person imagines the next state he wants to reach, it is already a prayer. After all, I don’t know where the Creator is, how to raise a request to Him, MAN, who it goes through, what this MAN actually is, or what desires it is. That’s the way it is in our lives: If we want something, we imagine that we already have it, and yearn for this imaginary picture where we are in the desired state.

They say that if you want to be slim—don’t diet, don’t listen to all kinds of advice, and don’t take diet pills and exercise, etc. nothing will help. Only constantly think that you are already slim. Then you will see that you don’t feel hungry any more and you will really lose weight.

It is really so, and it is the same with everything: You must imagine that you are already in the future state and you will really advance towards it. The yearning that is aimed at the goal will bring you there.

It is the same with us. So let’s imagine that we are really in the good state. There is no need to evoke any deficiencies, troubles, and worries, but only to yearn for this whole state, and try as hard as we can to help ourselves to actually reach that.
[73047]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/12, The Zohar

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We can talk about our advancement and ourselves as well as imagine the perspective from Above, from the source of reality. We reveal our work from below, while its cause from Above.

What was the purpose of creation? It is said that such is the desire of the upper one: to create a creature as perfect as He is. Thus in all our actions and intentions, while we scrutinize what happens with us, we should always remember that the end goal of it all is to reveal the Creator, to reveal precisely Him.

Whatever I feel, think, ponder, or aspire for is correct; such is the path of analysis. But what do I reveal on this path, my own self? No, I reveal myself opposite to the Creator. That is, in fact, I reveal Him.

We know from the wisdom of Kabbalah that in the world of Infinity there is no deficiency in anything but the realization of the Giver. The creature, called Malchut of the world of Infinity, must understand, feel, and attain Him.

That is why this round of creation is necessary: the descent into our world and the ascent back into Malchut of Infinity, which we have to carry out. This path from the bottom up is intended for the sole purpose of ascension in the attainment of the Giver.

We attain Him according to the equivalence of form: The more we resemble Him, the more we understand and feel Him, and the nearer we draw to Him. The end result is in its initial thought; hence, first and foremost, we have to establish the intention, that is, what do I want to achieve through all of my actions? What’s done is done, but why do I need it?

However, even before I clarify the intention, I need the initial thought of this intention’s primary origin since the idea is to reveal the Giver, the Creator. That is our goal.

I reveal in myself thoughts, intentions, desires, and attitudes, but essentially, through these actions I search for Him. “How do I go about doing it? What do I think? What do I want? How to I interact with someone or something?” Before each such discernment I prepare myself for the right attitude: Everything that I do is intended to reveal the Creator.

I need to draw some connections here:

• Whoever I am, He prepared it for me;
• Whatever I think every second, He gives me;
• Whatever happens with me right now during this analysis, it happens according to His will;
• However I react to what I feel, He, too, gives it to me.

There is only one thought, one statement that should always be mine: “Everything that is happening with me is coming from the Creator.” The first Shamati article talks about it: “There is None else Beside Him.”

Now, when I clarify my intentions—either for the sake of reception or for the sake of bestowal—they certainly come from the Creator. However, what is important to me in this analysis is that I reveal Him; I clarify who He is.

Out of all these discernments, the mosaic of reality takes shape inside of me. My friends, the world around me, its events and circumstances, everything should merge into one picture of the Creator. To the extent it appears internally, separate pieces come together: all creatures, this entire world, and all worlds together in one whole structure whose internal form is called the “Creator.” In its entirety, this structure represents Malchut of the world of Infinity or, in other words, the vessel, the desire. It is precisely His form, His structure, and interaction of all of His parts: desires, thoughts, and intentions that take on the form of the Giver.

The Creator Himself, Azmuto, does not have a form. However, we conduct a ceaseless analysis in ourselves and gradually create the form similar to His. As a result, He can be revealed. In the same manner, to detect waves that are unknown to us, we build a device in which they can be duplicated and reproduced. It allows us to discover them and study their nature.

The internal scrutiny helps us create a “place” to reveal the Creator; otherwise, He will remain concealed from us. That is why it is said that the Creator wants to dwell in the lower ones, meaning to reveal Himself to them. That is the reason He created the world of Infinity, and our work is comprised of revealing Him through our efforts.

Thus, the revelation of the Creator is the result of our internal scrutiny. He will not reveal Himself—our efforts and exertion are needed here. We exert our efforts, we want it and we don’t, the forces of reception and bestowal collide inside of us, and thereby we constantly prepare a place for His revelation.

Eventually, this place will become “pliable” enough so we could detect in it small “waves,” the Creator’s forms in the matter of desire. The more we soften our material, the more the Creator is revealed within it. He Himself is concealed; however, the matter begins to assume His form. This is what comprises all our clarifications: With their help we are preparing our desire to take on His imprint, His revelation.

Hence, with our every action it is necessary to remember that we, the world, and everything else in general exist only in order for us to reveal the Creator. It’s not a topic for discussion but the fact descending from the sources of creation. If I lay the foundation for any of my actions, thoughts, or intentions with that fact in mind, if I originally take this course, if I am directed toward the revelation of the Creator since such is His desire, then I am aimed at Infinity, at that very goal. And everything that I do later on will surely enter that depository of efforts that we must replenish.

Everything else will take place anyway. Only one thing depends on us: to direct our all our efforts toward the revelation of the Creator.

Later, the following questions arise: What does this revelation represent? How does one actualize it? What actions will prove most effective? Who does it depend on: myself, others, or our interaction? All in all, we are talking about the method that Kabbalists describe for us, explaining how to carry out actions that are most beneficial for the revelation of the Creator.

Today, the whole of humanity stands at the beginning of this revelation. Evolution came to the conclusion; the world has already realized the potential of materialistic progress. We have nothing to look for on other planets and nothing to extract from the earth; we have tried everything on its surface as well, and we saw that our life is limited and leads to a dead-end.

It is the beginning of the Creator’s revelation to all creatures. Because of this impediment people will start asking the question: “What for and why do we live? What is the purpose of life?”

From here on we learn that the purpose of our life is to reveal the Creator or, to be more precise, to prepare ourselves for His revelation. We achieve that through uniting, and thereby soften our desire to receive so it could become altruistic and begin to assume various sorts of bestowal. After all, the Creator is the quality of bestowal, and if we establish such a connection with each other, we help Him reveal Himself between us, we prepare the soil for it, the matter that will be able to assume His qualities, His projection.

Thus we develop ourselves in precise equivalence to His form.
[71271]
From the Arava Convention 2/23/12, Lesson #2

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While advancing toward revelation, we have to understand how to collect broken vessels (desires). Baal HaSulam writes about this in Igrot (Letters), Pg. 70: “However, because of the breaking of the vessels, all the Otiot (letters) were ejected to corporeal conducts and people. When one corrects oneself and reaches the root of one’s soul, he must collect them by himself, one-by-one, and bring them back to the root, to holiness.”

With the breakage of the vessels in the spiritual world, a coarser layer of desire was formed called “this world,” which is where we find ourselves now. Everything that happened at that time of breakage is now being revealed in our world in a corrupted form, between corporeal people.

And if a person realizes that everything happening between him and others is a result of the shattering of desires, he then takes all the connections with other people and returns them to the root, corrects them one by one. That means he “sentences himself and the entire world to a scale of merit.”

“The matter of the unification of the Creator and Divinity that one induces when he has had his fill of yearning and longing is precisely like the underside coupling, applying in the birth of a corporeal body. It too extends necessarily by cause and effect, meaning the hardening that is a certain measure of longing and yearning, called hardness in the corporeal tongue. Then, one’s seed is also blessed…” (Baal HaSulam, Igrot [Letters], Pg. 70).

A person reaches unity with the Creator only when he ardently longs for it. We possess a desire toward spiritual attainment, but it’s given to us from Above and doesn’t belong to us. Everyone was brought into a group at some point of time, and he comes to study because he is being awakened from Above. Everything he does is guided from Above; his actions are not yet his own, but the work of the Creator on him.

Apart from a desire, there is also yearning, and that is a special notion: an addition to the desire. It comes to me not from the Creator, but from the environment. When I connect with others, I receive their yearning toward spirituality. It’s an addition to the desire that I get from working with the environment. Only this yearning is counted in spiritual work, meaning only the additional desire that I gained with my own efforts, and I advance accordingly to it.

A simple desire toward spirituality can be great, and a person may be ready to study around the clock and to disseminate. But that’s not his own desire. He’s being wound up from Above like a windup toy; when you turn a key, it starts jumping. And a person can do a lot, but the question is whether this can be attributed to his own earned desire or to a desire given to him from Above.

Looking from aside, it’s impossible to know what’s the case. Only a person himself can examine and discover that. And in so doing, he won’t be able to complain about studying for so many years, learning so much, but not receiving a revelation. This is because the desire he is working with is not his, but belongs to the Creator who created it. He has to receive an addition to this desire that is called spiritual yearning.

It’s very important. However, many make the mistake of working with the original desire thinking that everything is fine: “Look at how much I do.” But only an addition that I earned with my own efforts is counted in spirituality. Everything that was given by the Creator is not counted because it existed in the world of Infinity. This is not why the development of the worlds and the breaking of Adam HaRishon took place. Everything already existed in the world of Infinity.

The only thing that didn’t exist in Infinity and that is required for us to start ascending from below upward is a spiritual yearning, pressure, and our own awakening. This is called MAN, a prayer.

We have to take this additional desire that didn’t exist in the world of Infinity from the environment. We have it thanks to the shattering! This is why I feel all the others as strangers. If they are separate from me, I can receive an impression from them. This impression is called “envy, lust, and ambition lead a person out of this world.”

I envy what others have and thereby increase my desire. This addition to my desire, which is called yearning, pressure, or perseverance with which I realize this desire, is what helps me build my spiritual vessel.
[72225]
From the Arava Convention 2/25/12, Lesson 7

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We have gathered here to catch our intention and not let go of it, even for a second. It is what’s called man, the head, the clarification; the rest is not important. If we immerse ourselves into this analysis deeper and deeper, we will suddenly feel that we exist in the common space. One is better, another is worse, but it doesn’t matter. Most importantly, we are all in one collective field and we clarify our intention together.

Each person may be in their own state, but when all analyze their intention, the inner prayer arises about how to clarify it better and in a more intelligible way: Whether my intention is egoistic or bestowing in where I looked, what I said, what I smelled, how I sat, or what I did—absolutely everything, on all levels. It can come to a point when we will begin to feel how the blood runs through our veins, how the nervous and other systems work inside our bodies.

A person will see the entire creation inside out, as transparent, and will realize that everything is working for the sake of egoistic reception. While he, seeing this, wants to clarify what “for the sake of bestowal” could mean.

As a result of the efforts to clarify the intention, we begin to feel the group. And then each individual effort adds up to the rest—in clarification of the intention and yearning to achieve the quality of bestowal. The intention to bestow cannot be private, individual. It is always connected with others’ identical intentions.

Hence, in this intention to bestow, in aspiration toward it, I suddenly begin to feel that I am not alone. Next to me are enormous forces that I suddenly notice, great sources of bestowal: the souls of Kabbalists of all generations. I feel like a little child who wants to join them: to grab their hand so they could lead me, just like a grown up takes a child by the hand, directs, and teaches him.

It is said: “A person’s soul will teach him.” My yearning for intention to bestow puts me into the collective circle. Then we achieve the connection, and any thought about my intention, which could be wrong, as well as my search for the right intention to bestow, everything together is included in our common prayer. And this prayer will be awarded an answer.

If we succeed to unite within this intention to bestow at least a little, we will understand the need for mutual guarantee when every one influences and helps each other. Each of us adds to the rest their own desire for bestowal. Then this prayer will reach the upper root, and this root will reveal to us the possibility to live in the intention to bestow.

Only then will we realize that this entire reality is, in fact, egoistic. Nothing changes between this and the upper reality, everything stays as it was: the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of nature. We only begin to see them from an altruistic perspective, through the prism of bestowal. Then we will indeed be looking through this reality, even through our own body, and we will see a reverse world operated by the opposite intention. We will see the infinite, perfect world, in addition to the one we see today.
[71246]
From the Arava Convention 2/23/12, Lesson #1

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No matter how many efforts a person puts forth and what discernments or actions he performs, he has an infinite number of possibilities to make a mistake if he doesn’t hold onto the authentic source that passes the Light onto him.

He will not even know that he is making a mistake. Regardless of his rung, he will be like “a man who is lost in the field” or “a wandering donkey in the field” (the desire to receive pleasure). One needs to have an admiration for the greatness of the source of the Light. Only with its help we can discern our state, determine the correct direction, and steer.

The Light arranges and turns all of this for us, while we don’t know what rung we are at. In the spiritual world we always advance from state to state without any understanding where we currently are. This is because we always rise from the desire to receive pleasure to the desire for bestowal. We change our intention, and therefore, we can never know what is ahead of us even the tiniest step.

This advancement is possible only through faith above reason. Only the Light can take you if you grab it and fulfill the conditions given to you. This is the essence of all our work (raising MAN, prayer) when we prepare all conditions, all our wishes and abilities, so afterward we would hand everything to the upper Light with full confidence that He will do everything.

This requires a lot of effort from us, but in the end all of this is the work of the Light and therefore it is called the work of the Creator.

This is why it is necessary to treat The Book of Zohar with respect as much as possible. Although certainly this will never be enough since a person is incapable to really appreciate this upper radiance called Zohar. However, try to value each word as if you receive from it one more portion of medicine, one more drop of infusion, which pours the elixir of life into you.
[72166]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/12, Writings of Rabash, “Purim”

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