Entries in the 'Prayer and Intention' Category

Prayer Not for Oneself

161Question: How can I ask for the cancellation of suffering so that this request will not be for my own sake?

Answer: It depends on what you are asking for. If you are connected to the world and ask that the people on earth feel that they are suffering, since they are that way by nature, then turn to the Creator and ask Him to change you, because suffering comes for your sake as well.

You cause the suffering by your behavior, by your inner state. In accordance with this, you should ask the Creator to remove all egoism from you, and then you will be able to treat others correctly like the Creator.

In this way, you will get closer to the Creator, help Him in His work, and add your strength to His strength.
[319449]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/19/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Eighteen Prayer“

Related Material:
Mercy for a Friend
What And How To Ask The Creator
How Can We Ask The Creator For Anything?

The Special Feature of the “Eighteen Prayer”

534Everyone should behave the same as in the last three of the “Eighteen Prayer.”

In other words, after having pleaded before the Creator, The Zohar says that in the last three of the “Eighteen Prayer,” one should think as though the Creator has already granted his request and he has departed (Rabash. The Agenda of the Assembly – 1. 17-2 (1984)).

“The Eighteen Prayer” is a standard prayer. The rest of the prayers a person can say from himself. He can recite passages from Psalms and other things, but the “Eighteen Prayer,” that is, “Eighteen blessings,” is the prayer with which we turn to the Creator in the morning, afternoon, and evening.

This is not an ordinary prayer, not the prayer that you build yourself. This is an established prayer, which was written a thousand years ago.
[319671]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/24/23, Writings of Rabash “The Agenda of the Assembly – 1“

Related Material:
The Prayer Of Eighteen Sefirot
The Eighteen Degrees Of Prayer
The Power Of Prayer

How Can We Turn Fear into Awe of the Creator

239Question: I have a very strong fear for the children, for the parents, and for the soldiers. How can we replace that with awe, with longing for the Creator? How can we overcome this fear and move on to awe?

Answer: Pray and ask the Creator that everything will be fine. Even what you cannot express in words, the Creator will understand and do everything that is necessary. You should not have confused thoughts and desires.

Question: How is longing for the Creator developed so that it manifests itself not through suffering, but through the desire for bestowal and love?

Answer: Only communication in a group, only a common prayer to the Creator can unite you all, guide and tie you to Him, and then everything will be fine. That is all the world needs.

Until the whole world comes to the point where it is interconnected with each other and with the Creator, there will be no peace in the world.

Question: What is happening in the world causes me to often protest against the Creator. I want to justify Him, but it is very difficult to do so. How can I live with this?

Answer: We need to unite together and beg Him to change His anger to mercy. Let us do this together.
[319709]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/24/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Acknowledging the Desire“

Related Material:
From Fear to Trembling
Fear And Trembling
How Can We Be Afraid Of Someone We Love?

Prayer Must Be from the Bottom of the Heart

562.02The main thing is prayer because it expresses our request and attitude to the Creator. Prayer shows that we already understand that we are completely dependent on Him, that there is absolutely nothing we can do on our own, and that everything depends only on how we will be able to ask. Therefore, our main strength is the power of prayer.

But we, on the contrary, usually cry precisely because we do not have the strength. It turns out that just when we have no strength left, we are ready for real work, which is prayer. Meaning that I should be glad when I feel powerless; I have come to the point where I can turn to the Creator, shout, ask, and pray.

It takes a lot of effort to realize that one cannot achieve anything on his own. Then I turn to the Creator, and ask Him for strength and help to raise prayer. Then, the Creator fulfills this request and allows us to cling to Him.

The Creator feels a person’s desire to adhere to Him, just as the Creator is already stuck to a person, although the person does not feel it yet.

Prayer should be from the bottom of the heart, and each time it is deeper and deeper. To turn with prayer means to cling to the Creator with my hands and feet as if I am in the Creator like a fetus in the mother’s womb. I drink and feed from Him, and I want to drown and infinitely dissolve in Him. That is, how I want to annul myself in front of the upper.

The appeal to the Creator is possible only through friends. That is, I want to grab hold of my friends and annul myself before them; this will mean that I have incorporated in the upper.
[319602]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/18/23, “Everything is Obtained By the Power of Prayer”

Related Material:
A Prayer Is Work In The Heart
The Prayer Of The Poor
All Work Must Finish With A Prayer

Work with Gladness

236.01And the most important is the prayer. That is, one must pray to the Creator to help him go above reason, meaning that the work should be with gladness, as though he has already been rewarded with the reason of Kedusha, and what joy he would feel then. Likewise, he should ask the Creator to give him this power, so he can go above the reason of the body.

In other words, although the body does not agree to this work in order to bestow, he asks the Creator to be able to work with gladness, as is suitable for one who serves a great King. He does not ask the Creator to show the greatness of the Creator, and then he will work gladly. Rather, he wants the Creator to give him joy in the work of above reason, that it will be as important to a person as if he already has reason (Rabash, Article 12 (1991), “These Candles Are Sacred”).

A person does not yet have knowledge; he does not even want to be in knowledge, but desires to be above it. In other words, even if he sees contradictory, opposite qualities within reason that should not be in the Creator, he still wants to elevate himself to worship the Creator, to place Him above himself.

Comment: When I succeed in rising above reason and experience joy, it also becomes knowledge that I have overcome; I have connected and I am happy about it. But still, at some point you come to feel it within yourself.

My Response: Of course you have joy because you have achieved it although the Creator did everything, but He did it with your nature. ​​He created your initial nature and at the same time made it possible for you to attain the next, higher nature.

But it becomes knowledge again, and you rise above it again.

Question: How can you be happy not just for yourself?

Answer: Then you will immediately fall.

Question: And where should one go beyond that afterward?

Answer: All the time higher, and there you will see.
[319397]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/19/23, “Everything is Obtained By the Power of Prayer”

Related Material:
The Main Thing Is Prayer
Building The Degree Of Faith
What Is Faith Above Reason?

Serve the Great

534From this one can come to clear awareness that he has no other choice but to pour out his heart to the Creator to help him so the body will agree to enslave itself to the Creator unconditionally, as he sees that he cannot persuade his body to annul itself completely. (Baal HaSulam, Shamati No. 5, “Lishma Is an Awakening from Above, and Why Do We Need an Awakening from Below?”)

Question: The body (egoism) will agree to work without reward only because it views the Creator as great. This will serve as payment for the fact that he works for the Creator.

Is there still a calculation going on here, to serve for the sake of someone great?

Answer: Of course. It is impossible to do so without any calculation because our desire to receive puts us on a different track; instead of working for myself, I do it for the Creator.

Question: Then at what point are we making an effort and what kind of effort is it?

Answer: Our efforts are directed against egoism, which constantly distracts us to its own needs. Try to work everything out so your requests would be the least egoistic.
[319334]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/17/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati 5 “Lishma Is an Awakening from Above, and Why Do We Need an Awakening from Below?“

Related Material:
Serve the Creator
Chosen To Serve The Creator And The Creatures
Being Impressed By The Creator’s Greatness

How Can We Turn Torah into the Light of Life?

568.01Question: In Rabash’s article “What Is, “Rise Up, O Lord, and Let Your Enemies Be Scattered,” in the Work” it says that Torah gives a person medicine. What medicine does the Torah give in our group work?

Answer: You get a small illumination, a little upper light, and you begin to better understand where you are. And so you advance.

Question: How do we turn Torah into the light of life rather than a poisonous potion?

Answer: It depends only on our intention. If we want our turning to the Creator to elicit a corresponding reaction from Him, we must unite and ask Him for only one thing—to draw us closer to Him.
[319531]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/21/23, Writing of Rabash “What Is, “Rise Up, O Lord, and Let Your Enemies Be Scattered,” in the Work?“

Related Material:
The Torah Is a Gift from the Creator to a Person
The Oral Torah Is A Key To Penetrating Inside
The Torah Is A Program And A Guide

Suffering is A Lack of Connection with The Creator

276.02Question: It is written in Baal HaSulam’s article “The Eighteen Prayer” that there is a commandment to pray for suffering. How can we do this correctly?

Answer: By suffering we mean a lack of connection with the Creator, with friends, with all of humanity. Praying for suffering correctly means that I am not asking the Creator to take it back, I am not asking not to cause it in me.

Through suffering He reminds me that I am not corrected. Therefore, I ask Him to correct me, and then, to the extent that I am corrected, I will begin to feel the world differently.

Question: What does a Kabbalist suffer from?

Answer: The Kabbalist suffers from the fact that he wants to love more, but is not yet able to. The point is that there is a limit to the extent his heart is in the intention of bestowal. I want more, but I do not have the strength yet.

Question: What do we pray for when the Creator already cancels suffering?

Answer: We pray that we correct ourselves and treat each other with love, and then the suffering itself will disappear.
[319486]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/19/23, “The Eighteen Prayer”

Related Material:
The Pain of a Kabbalist
The Mission Of A Kabbalist
Man Is Someone Who Is Compassionate

Two-Way Connection

942Question: You said we should turn to the Creator from a global connection. How do you know we are in such a connection?

Answer: You must be connected to each other so that everyone feels the friends. And from this global connection, starting from your lowest level, rise higher and higher to the Creator and only together make a request to Him until the Creator begins to answer you. Such a two-way connection will be constantly between you.
[319646]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/23, “Reinforcing Ourselves with There Is None Else Besides Him”

Related Material:
The Rational Condition Of Connection With The Creator
Two-Sided Work
How Can We Awaken The Creator?

The Role of Intention in the Work for the Creator

528.04At every step of the spiritual path, the main role is played by the intention to achieve the desire of the Creator.

It is possible to build the right intention through the fact that we connect with our friends, slowly begin to think about others, and thus come to a state where our thoughts and actions are focused on taking care of them. We ask the Creator to help us in this, and we thus achieve the quality of bestowal.

Question: If we are in the ten together scrutinizing the intention, should we not come to some kind of scrutiny of who has the right intention and who does not?

Answer: No, everyone scrutinizes their own intention.
[319703]
From  the 1st psrt of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/25/23, Writings of Rabash “What Is the Measure of Repentance?“

Related Material:
Intention Is Action
The Main Thing Is Intention
Intention: An Oil Painting