Question: We are trying to teach the world about unity, but an egoistic one for now. How can we later raise people to the level of love for the Creator?

Answer: They will make this transition under our guidance. After all, we are leading them into the framework of the new upbringing, rather than just gushing in front of the public.

People will have to enter the network of upbringing, which envelops every age group, from 0 until 120, and which is in effect from now until the end of correction, throughout all times. Everyone will have to undergo an unceasing process of upbringing. Say, a third of the day will be spent on work, and two thirds on upbringing, which is also work in and of itself.

Then, through a gentle, customary presentation, we will explain to people the principles of Baal HaSulam, adapted to the whole world. After all, the science of Kabbalah talks about the will to enjoy and the will to bestow pleasure, about their relationships and interactions, about how to correct our nature. There is nothing “virtual,” imaginary, “spiritual,” or mystical about it. It is talking about forces that act inside of you.

By revealing them more and more, you will see that no one is forcing you to “float up in the clouds.” “Spirituality” is the intention for bestowal. If I attained bestowal to another person, that means I am spiritual. But if I care for myself, then I am material. Our relationships, which are based on bestowal, are the spiritual world, whereas our current relationships are the material world.

But we are not even talking about any kind of “worlds.” After all, it’s difficult for a person to give up his old notions, and therefore he will become confused. Therefore, we are giving him simple explanations, presenting the entire science of Kabbalah without any special terminology, with scientific words.

We have to build up this system of upbringing so we could gradually give people the knowledge about human nature. Nothing more than that is necessary. We are talking about man’s nature, which is the only thing that was created.

Thanks to this, a person will constantly develop until he discovers what lies on the outside – the system of his interconnection with others. And in it, he will reveal the Creator.

In practice, we can give explanations in terms of perception of reality: A person isn’t even revealing a connection with others, but himself. The desires that appear external and alien to him become revealed as his own. It turns out that this is him. By bringing the external parts closer to himself, it’s as if he sews them on, implants them, and joins together the separated organs of his body. And according to this, he feels and reveals the perfect reality.

Now I see only what is present in a small part of the broken body. But the more parts I reunite with it, the more I reveal in it.
[48600]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/19/11, “Arvut”

Related Material:
The Catalyst Of The Spiritual Desire
Our Meeting Place With Humanity
The Influence Of The Environment With A Spiritual Illumination

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Education, Egoism, Kabbalah Dissemination, Perception, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Spirituality, Unity, World - No Comments →

Question: What should I do if I am able to cancel myself in my thoughts, but it’s very difficult for me to do this in practice?

Answer: That’s impossible! If I really cancel myself in my thoughts, then I also do it in the actions. The action reflects the intention.

But if I still haven’t reached the final decision to cancel myself, then I am unable to carry out this action and am only lying to myself by thinking that I am cancelling myself in the thoughts.

If we see that after an argument a group does not come to unity, until the next quarrel, this is a sign that its members do not cancel each other before one another and don’t have any chance of attaining spirituality.

By conducting an inner self-analysis and trying to cancel our egoism before the friends, internally and externally, we already carry out the spiritual work. The spiritual world can become revealed to us practically only on the condition that we entirely cancel our egoism according to the level of our current degree.

If you now attain the true self-annulment in relation to any person, you will be convinced that you feel yourself in the spiritual reality, in the quality of bestowal, united with the Creator to a certain extent!
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/11, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
A Universal Recipe For Success
Daybreak In The Depth Of Desire
Lower Your Head And Take As Much As You Want
The Reason For Every Quarrel

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Spirituality, Unity - 1 Comment →

Question: How can I avoid taking pride in my bestowal to the Creator?

Answer: The only thing you can take pride in is that you’ve received support from Above, which enabled you to overcome the hardships, meaning your ego. In other words, you need to take pride in the Creator, the Light, His help, but not yourself!

What do we have? Nothing! Our desires and actions are not our own, and neither is the Light. Even the prayer is not our own, but we receive it from the environment. Therefore, the further we advance, the less we receive, and the more we are grateful.

And when we return back to Malchut of the world Infinity, we receive the same Light of Nefesh de Nefesh which was in Malchut in its very first state. However, we intensify its illumination by “613” times with our gratitude, attainment of the good, and sensation of the Giver’s greatness.

But the Light itself does not change since it has no measure. The Light itself remains Nefesh de Nefesh, merely a small illumination. It is we who turn it into a great flame.
[48251]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/15/2011, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Only He Is The Joy Of My Heart
Practical Advice by Rabash
Playing A Game Of Bestowal

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - 1 Comment →

Question: What does it mean “to maintain the intention”? I get an impression that one does not move or develop this way. How can one develop the intention?

Answer: While reading The Zohar, I play a game with my friends. It doesn’t matter how well we understand or fail to understand these words, whether we hear part of a phrase, a quarter of, or the entire sentence, all of the words, and whether we delve to a greater or a lesser depth—everyone does what he can. The game is in correlating all these words with the connection between us.

Indeed, The Book of Zohar tells us about the way we should connect with one another. I don’t know what this connection is like, but it is described here. And for this reason, while I am reading The Zohar, I try to think about what it’s like to be connected one way or another, in one form or another.

For example, it is written: “‘Time to act for the sake of the Creator’ …since ‘they have transgressed against their Torah.’” What does this refer to? When a person forgets about the intention for the sake of bestowal, it means that he has “transgressed against the Torah.” And then “time to act for the sake of the Creator” means that you must once again return to the same intention, the same strong connection with your friends in mutual bestowal, because this way you aspire to build a “place” for the revelation of the Creator. And you do this to give Him the opportunity to reveal Himself. He receives pleasure from this like a Host who reveals treats to his guest.

So why do you read The Zohar? Where do you realize what you have read and reveal it? It can only be revealed in the corrected relationship between us. There is no other “place.” It is only revealed if we are able to create a correct connection in mutual bestowal.

For this reason I try to find the threads, the net that connects our desires, thoughts, and the strength of the aspiration between us. What forces operate this connection? What is the formula of this network? I want to know about it! And The Zohar specifically tells us about it.
[47892]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/2011, The Zohar

Related Material:
“To Not Regret The Lost Time….”
An Attack Inside The Heart
Where Can You “Buy” Aspiration?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, World - No Comments →

Question: How can I keep the constant intention that The Zohar talks only about the connection between us?

Answer: The main thing is intention. If you can listen to the text of The Zohar and keep the right intention, then listen. If you cannot listen since listening diverts you from the intention, then stay in the intention.

The same condition of keeping the constant intention to be corrected by the Light applies to the study of all other Kabbalistic materials, and in general, to each moment of life. If a person cannot stay in intention, it is a pity to waste effort and lose time.
[47597]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/7/2011, The Zohar

Related Material:
The Right Intention For Reading The Zohar
Through The Zohar To The Creator
Expect To Be Healed By The Zohar

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Zohar - 1 Comment →

The Zohar, Chapter “Truma (Donation),” Item 487: There is an allegory about a king who made a meal for his household. As long as they do his will, they eat at the meal with the king and give the part of the bones for the dogs to chew on. When his household do not do the king’s will, he gives the entire meal to the dogs and the bones to his household.

Question: What is this food that everyone eats at the king’s table?

Answer: “Food” means that you receive pleasure from bestowing. And you have to receive these pleasures also for the sake of bestowal.

This is talking about an attitude, a sensation, actions in desires. The “dogs” inside of me are sitting beneath the “table” inside of me where I feel the “tastes of the king.”

What are the “tastes of the king”? What is “the king’s table”? These are all the pleasures that become revealed from bestowal, which the king desires to bestow. He enjoys by giving. And he wishes for you to also enjoy giving to others.

Then, if you bestow and enjoy it, the whole question is: What is giving you pleasure? Are you enjoying the fact that you are similar to the king? Are you enjoying this because He receives pleasure from your equivalence to Him? Or are you enjoying it because you have gotten your hands on some pleasure? If so, then you immediately transform from a person who sits at the table across from a king into a dog who chews bones under the table.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/11/11, The Zohar

Related Material:
I Give By Receiving Everything
How Can We Please The Creator?
Like Clay In The Hands Of The Master

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Zohar - 2 Comments →

By restricting myself in order to take care of the neighbor, I won’t be secretly worrying about my own well-being in the slightest. I simply won’t think about myself. This is the correction that the Light performs in me. This is the meaning of rising above the desire, performing the First Restriction, and acquiring the quality of bestowal. All of this is the results of the Light’s influence.

My care for the neighbor is in no way connected to any material details. I continue eating, drinking, and providing all of my necessities. It’s all about my desire, my inner attitude to the action.

For example, say I really want to help a sick person, I want to feed him and give him drink, but the doctors don’t permit him anything besides a little piece of bread and a cup of tea. Thus, even though I would like to give him a rich, exquisite dish and I have the opportunity to do that, I am limited.

It turns out that everything is about the intention. We do not build relationships and mutual guarantee between us on an artificial basis. And that’s why it seems to us that it is impossible to attain bestowal and unity, that it is impossible to give up concern for oneself, not worrying even about one’s vital necessities, and think only about the neighbor. They are supplied for me by others so I would simply provide for myself. By their guarantee, they take care of my material needs, as well as taking total, 100% care of my spiritual success.

All of this has to be built correctly. Who are the friends? They are receiving desires that are corrected by the Light that reforms. Nothing here is done by our own efforts. Efforts have to be made in order to attract the Light, which will come and correct us. It’s funny to think that we would act for the sake of bestowal of our own accord. Can a person really jump above his own head?

Our problem is that we do not aim at the Light in all of our actions. We think that the action itself will bring the result: that we will hug and will start loving the neighbor. But that won’t happen. We have to hug with the intention that by virtue of this, the Light will come and fuse us together in the inner embrace. Everything is carried out by means of the Light that reforms. We forget about the most important component, about the only force that operates in reality.

It seems to us that it is very difficult and unrealistic to connect mutual guarantee, unity, adhesion, the neighbor, bestowal, and vital necessity into one so they would become a single vessel for revealing absolute bestowal, meaning the revelation of the Creator to creation. And the only reason for it is that we do not evoke the Force that will build this state for us. We mistakenly expect to create it ourselves.
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/11/11, Matan Torah

Related Material:
When Everyone Is Responsible For Everyone Else
The World Where “There Is None Else Besides Him”
Like Clay In The Hands Of The Master

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Love, Mutual Guarantee, Prayer and Intention, Unity - 2 Comments →

Question: How will the Light solve the problems of seven billion people on earth if every person has his own problems and level of development? We live in a huge system. Is it really possible that every detail in it will be accounted for?

Answer: Imagine a depression in the earth that you fill with water. In the same way, every detail, element, protrusion, and dent in the world is filled with Light according to its qualities.

The Light does not have any calculations with the desire. It simply fills it and shines for it, awakening inside of it. And according to that, the desire feels how close it is to the Light or how far it is from the Light in certain details of perception.

For example, the Light that I receive increased by 10 watts. Accordingly, in every one of my qualities and in every desire, a new thought arises, a new analysis of the situation, and I make a new calculation.

Question: It turns out that the Light is not a function, but everything is determined only by the desire?

Answer: The Light is invariable. Everything depends on my desire and its forms. When it is filled with Light, I don’t feel the Light itself, but the reaction of the desire, all of its strings. This is Light for me.

Question: So which part of this depends on me?

Answer: Work with the intention. We don’t change the desires, but the intention. And only it. I don’t care which protrusions and indentations are present in the hole that I fill with water. They will remain the way they are, while my task is to fill it.
[47687]
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/10/11, Matan Torah

Related Material:
Rising Above The Problem In Order To Solve It
A Righteous Man Is The Foundation Of The World
What Is Light?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - 2 Comments →

Question: Is it possible to mix requests to the Creator, meaning to ask for one thing and another?

Answer: “One thing and another” means there is no desire. The desire has to be perfect.

The upper Light can fill thousands of desires. But how can it place several fillings in one desire? In that case it is not called a desire.

You are a desire. Does this desire want something? Yes. And it receives whatever it wants. It cannot want two fillings because it is one desire, one vessel. If you want several things, that means your desire did not take on the right form yet.

It’s impossible to love two people. After all, you want to unite with the person you love. It doesn’t matter what this desire is for exactly—for food, sex, family, wealth, honor, knowledge, or spirituality. Regardless, it has to be whole, “I want it!”
From the lesson on 7/8/11, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

Related Material:
Working On Desire Together
My Objective Is To Desire
The Prayer Before The Prayer

Filed under: Love, Prayer and Intention, Q&A, Spirituality, Zohar - 1 Comment →

We are unable to understand what the intention “for the sake of bestowal” (Lishma) is since we are always in the desire to enjoy, opposite to bestowal. And what seems to be bestowal to us in this world is just another form of egoism pretending to bestow so that when we give to someone, we indirectly receive even more from them.

And that is why we do not understand the meaning of “Lishma,” complete bestowal without any profit for oneself. Baal HaSulam says in Shamati No. 5 (“Lishma Is an Awakening from Above, and Why Do We Need an Awakening from Below”) that it is not for the human mind to grasp how such a thing can happen in the world.

Also when a person is really working to reach bestowal, he begins to understand how unrealistic this goal is. How is it possible to stop thinking about oneself, to receive a thought, action, or desire which is directed to the “outside,” without caring about one’s own benefit? This is because one is only able to understand that he will attain something by engaging in Torah and Mitzvot. There must be self-gratification there; otherwise one is unable to do anything.

Instead, this is an illumination that comes from Above, and only one who tastes it (receives from Above) can know and understand what he has received. And therefore there is nothing to go by before this, not a simple understanding or even a slight perception of what bestowal, “Lishma,” is.

It is written about it, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” This means that first one needs to “taste,” to receive a sensation, and then one can understand.

Why then should we invest our effort and work to implement the recommendations of Kabbalists if nothing will help until the Creator gives us the other nature? Isn’t it easier to wait until you receive it?

The answer is, as our sages said, “It is not for you to complete the work, and you are not free to idle away from it.” This means that one must give the awakening from below since this is discerned as a prayer. A prayer is considered a deficiency, and without deficiency there is no fulfillment. We need to obtain a desire suitable for filling with the quality of bestowal.

But how can I ask for something that I’ve never tried or needed, something I do not have, and I know absolutely nothing about? It follows, that one’s work is needed to receive the Lishma from the Creator only in the form of a lack and a Kli (vessel). Yet, one can never attain the fulfillment alone; it is rather a gift from God.

However, the prayer must be a whole prayer, that is, from the bottom of the heart. This means that a person knows one hundred percent that there is no one in the world who can help him but the Creator Himself. Meaning that a person needs to invest all of his efforts to not receive anything, to arrive at a broken heart. Only then will he finally hear the desperation inside from all the efforts that he invested and realize that only the Creator can help him. And then the Creator hears his prayer.

See how much effort and frustration is needed in order to move from state to state, to attain a deeper understanding that I cannot, I am unable to, I do not want to! And thus, I descend step by step, penetrating ever deeper into the heart, until I reach the true prayer.
[47215]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/5/2011, Shamati #5

Related Material:
To See And Hear The Upper System
Feeling Light’s “Breath”
The Gradual Change From Lo Lishma To Lishma

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →