Entries in the 'Prayer and Intention' Category

First Intention Then Action

627.2Question: What is the difference between thought and action? We always judge people by their actions, but thoughts practically produce the same actions. Let’s say a person wants to kill someone, we do not judge him by his thoughts.

Answer: In our world, we judge a person by actions, and in the spiritual world by thoughts. That is the difference. Therefore, we must correct our thoughts, as they say, intention.

Comment: Surely people do terrible things in their thoughts! They would have killed each other already.

My Response: This is why we are below the level of the spiritual world; we do not have its forces; otherwise, we would have taken this force and destroyed the entire world. But you are given the opportunity to have it only to the extent that you can make correct use of it and not in any other case.

The spiritual program is created in such a way that there is always an intention first and only then an action. Therefore, as soon as you may have some bad action and a bad intention before it, you immediately fall from this degree and do not have the strength to move on.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Thoughts and Actions” 9/8/13

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Mind, Desire, and Intention

908Question: Does a person born in our world already have an intention? Is he born not just with the desire to receive?

Answer: Yes, but they are small, micro intentions.

Question: We see that a small child has a desire to enjoy. Yet you cannot even say that he enjoys for his own sake. But when he grows up, he shows such, one might say, cunningness that he does it consciously for himself, he consciously uses others. Do we have a desire, a mind, and another function?

Answer: We have mind, desire, and intention. The most important thing is the intention. It determines where a person aspires in his actions.

With the help of the mind, we can change the intention. Desire itself is purely mechanical. But how we can elevate the intention above the desires and change the nature of the desire itself—for our own sake or for the sake of others—is already a human ability.

The mind is a very important function. Thanks to it, we can change our intentions.
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From KabTV’s “The Study of the Ten Sefirot (TES)” 10/2/22

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Changing Life with the Help of Prayer

236.01Question: If some deficiency arises in me and I understand that the Creator caused it, should I still add some external words?

Answer: Yes. Speak from yourself and as much as possible. And the Creator will understand and translate everything as needed.

Question: But this is one layer. Is there an even higher level, to ask for some things that are against my desires?

Answer: Against your desires and most importantly for others. If you are asking for others, for the whole world, for everyone, and you want them all to become wiser, better, closer to each other, softer, kinder, and you want to be inside of them, then these are the simplest and most effective prayers.

The Creator is a general force within which we exist. He can hear the prayer of any desire. This is what works here. I don’t have to talk or speak in any language, whistle, or sing. We launch our desires.

Question: Is it a kind of physics? Is there a single huge force and each of our desires also a small force? And is it felt?

Answer: Of course, physics. And why should it act somehow in a special way? We can direct the forces of nature ourselves, nurture them, and concentrate them. We can manage all of nature.

Comment: When you read prayer books, it seems like some kind of lyrics, and you are talking about forces.

My Response: The prayer book says what we should desire. And to really come to this, we need explanations and education. It is necessary to study.

I suggest reaching out to us to learn how we can change our lives with the help of prayer. Good luck!
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 9/25/22

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Not to Harm Your Soul

962.6Question: Let’s say a person has some material problems and he asks the Creator to sort them out somehow. Is this normal?

Answer: Do you see that it helps?

Comment: It probably helps someone, but not someone else.

My Response: In principle, no.

Question: In Kabbalistic literature it is written more strongly that you harm yourself with this. In what way exactly?

Answer: By asking for yourself, you are asking to fill up or at least calm your egoism.

Comment: Then this information should be known to everyone because people usually ask for themselves.

My Response: Let them come and study Kabbalah. In many sources it is clearly written that if a person asks for himself, then he harms his soul.

Therefore people should come and learn how to properly address the upper force and thereby direct themselves to the right goal, to good.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 9/25/22

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The Less You Think of Yourself…

232.1There is no happier state in man’s world than when he finds himself despaired with his own strength (Baal HaSulam, Letter 57).

Question: How long do you think it takes a person to despair that he cannot correct himself and so he has to ask for help from above?

Answer: All his life except for the last moment when he is so desperate that he cries out to the Creator and the Creator hears him and corrects him.

Question: Does my prayer for others have any healing effect on me? Let’s say I ask for others does it work for me too?

Answer: Of course, that is what the prayer says: I ask for absolutely everyone and for myself last.

Question: Today scientists have come to the conclusion that if a person does some kind, altruistic deeds, it has a good effect on his mental state. Is this also praised in Kabbalah?

Answer: Of course. It works on all levels. The less a person thinks about himself and more about others, the better it is for him.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 9/25/22

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Conditions for Raising a Prayer

562.02There are three conditions in prayer:

1. Believing that He can save him. Although he has the worst conditions of all his contemporaries, still, “Will the Lord’s hand be too short to save him?” If it is not so, then “the Landlord cannot save His vessels” (Baal HaSulam, Shamati, “Three Conditions in Prayer”).

Question: What does it mean to “believe”?

Answer: A person consists of all kinds of qualities and desires. Therefore, our studies attune us to select from all our desires, qualities, and intentions the ones that will direct all of humanity to good.

To believe means to be sure that if I do this, then eventually I invite upon myself the correct influence of the upper force and gradually correct myself. Thus, the first condition is that I must be sure that the Creator can help me.

2: He no longer has any choice for he has already done all that he could but saw no cure to his plight.

It means that he did not do everything. There is no other solution but to ask. Constantly address your request to the Creator. This is a single internal force of nature, which is able to correct us all. Therefore, there is practically nothing except for a prayer or request for correction.

3: If He does not help him, he will be better off dead than alive.

We need to come to the next state in which I want to correct myself and be similar to the Creator so much that if I do not achieve this, then it is not worth living for the sake of something else.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 9/25/22

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Prayer of Eight Billion

260.01Comment: It is very difficult to imagine that a person walks around and thinks from morning to night: “How can I love all my neighbors?! If I cannot love them, it is better not to live. I do not want to live like that!”

My Response: If we start to think about it and understand that the meaning of our life is to correct ourselves from egoism to altruism, then, in general, this is what we do.

Comment: Imagine if eight billion people would sit and think: “How can we love each other”? This would be utopia.

My Response: If they imagined themselves like that for a second, it would be a prayer of eight billion! It would be fulfilled right away.

Question: Do you believe that someday this will happen?

Answer: Yes. Gradually, all kinds of negative emotions, rejections, and disappointments are accumulating in humanity. In the end, everyone will come to this.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 9/25/22

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Asking the Creator for Help

549.01Question: Your teacher Rabash wrote that one should pray to the Creator to help him go above reason. And this work should be in joy, as if he had already been awarded spiritual knowledge.

How can you ask for such a thing? What should we do with regular requests that automatically arise within us?

Answer: If a person aims himself toward connecting with others, to love others, if he turns to the Creator in order to rise above his egoistic nature, he gradually succeeds.

Comment: But it is against our nature.

My Response: Yes. That is why I said gradually succeeds.

Question: Your teacher also wrote that man’s sin is not asking the Creator for help. Had he asked, he would certainly have received it.

It turns out that the only sin is not in doing some unworthy actions, but in not asking the Creator for help.

Answer: Yes. “Why didn’t you ask?”

Question: Isn’t it considered a sin if you have done something against humanity?

Answer: You should have asked not to do such actions or have such thoughts or motives.

Question: So if something has already been done, it is not a sin?

Answer: There is an opportunity to correct everything.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 9/25/22

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The Purpose of Prayer Books

525Question: On one hand there are a huge number of different prayers: for certain days of the year, certain seasons, and holidays. On the other hand, Kabbalah says that you should ask only one thing, for the Creator to give you His own property, the property of bestowal. Why is there so much writing about this?

Answer: In principle, we do not need anything else, only to master the properties that the Creator possesses.

Comment: So, there would be one line: “I ask You to give me the property of bestowal and love,” and that is it.

My Response: Indeed. But in order for a person to understand what he is really asking for, that he is in this prayer, he needs a lot of words.

Therefore, all thick books with prayers are designed to properly set a person up for a request.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 9/25/22

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Pray for Everyone, Including Yourself

534Question: It is written in Kabbalah that if you ask for yourself, you harm your soul. How can I understand this? What does it mean “not to ask for myself”?

Answer: The goal of all our prayers has to be to correct myself and to come closer to the Creator. The Creator is the property of absolute bestowal, absolute love, and absolute connection between all. Therefore, if we are attuning to address Him correctly, we first must attune ourselves to these properties.

Question: If I am asking to have the property of bestowal, do I harm myself?

Answer: No, you do not harm yourself because you attune yourself to bestowal. You already want to be similar to the Creator.

Question: But I am still asking for myself to have this property.

Answer: But what for? It is for bestowal, meaning, in essence, you are asking not for yourself but for the ability in some way to bestow and serve others.

Question: If a person is asking for his health or wellbeing of his family, is it harmful?

Answer: Yes. It will not be harmful only if he asks for the entire world and for himself within this world.

Question: What if I am asking: “give me health” but with the intent to receive the property of bestowal after that?

Answer: It is also possible. Also it is generally possible if you ask for everyone including yourself. In this case, your prayer is effective.
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From KabTV’s “Spiritual States” 9/25/22

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