Entries in the 'Prayer and Intention' Category

Action—Thought—Desire

944The anti-egoistic screen is first of all the force of connection between the friends in the ten and then between us and the Creator. It is built upon the fact that we want to rise above our egoism and unite. If we invest efforts in connection, then in this way, we begin to build a screen.

This connection is not just in thoughts but in the hearts, the cordial connection of one with another. We want to connect our hearts because the Creator is one for all, and He reveals Himself within the connection between all of us.

I make an effort in my heart that I want to direct it to a certain quality and begin to approach it. The main thing is the effort in the heart as there is nothing spiritual in the physical action. After all, I strive with my heart to the one I love, I want to be closer to him so that he feels this heartfelt closeness. This is called connection of hearts.

We want to give to each other. And of course, giving can be in an external form, in the form of a material gift, but by this I express my heartfelt feelings.

How can you direct your heart in the right direction? With the help of a thought. The heart is a desire, and I direct this desire with the help of a thought. Through the thought, it is possible to control the desire like a steering wheel if I rise in my thoughts to a prayer in which my desire is combined with my thought and with my goal. So, I find myself as if driving a car.

The thought comes to us from the Creator, but I can influence and change my thoughts with the help of actions of connection. We connect with our hearts but under the influence of thoughts.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/22/22, Baal HaSulam, Shamati 42

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Scrutiny of the Request to the Creator

161When reading The Zohar, it is essential by all possible means and most importantly in your thoughts, to clarify for yourself that now you are entering the office where you will ask and you will receive, but on condition that your request is correct.

It is desirable for a person to perceive that he is given the opportunity to enter and say only one phrase. And if with this phrase you fail to awaken the one in this office, on whom your whole fate depends, then you lose this opportunity and you will not get another one.

If a person stays in such a sensation, even if he gets opportunities again and again, it can somehow help him.

That is why, it is necessary to know:

  1. All the changes that we should first of all desire are the changes in the direction of bestowal and love for your neighbor and from them to love for the Creator.
  2. These changes are realized in us only by an upper force that can influence us and make them; only on condition that we desire them, as much as we can desire, from the lowest level toward the highest. After all, we do not yet understand these changes and do not want them one hundred percent because these changes are toward bestowal and love for your neighbor. But as much as I am given and with all my might I strive. I must believe that if my request will be correct, immediately these changes will come true and will be realized in me.

Therefore, we must form such a picture for ourselves in which we are constantly present, and while reading The Book of Zohar we should stay on the edge of the request, prayer, worship, or plea so that even if we do not reach the true request, then due to this plea, as in the prayer before the prayer, we hope that our request will take the right form; meaning, I do not know how to ask Him, so I ask Him to help me to know how to ask.

I can’t tell Him, “I am asking, but I don’t know how and You do it!” No, it will not work that way. He cannot do this, my request must be correct in any case, because otherwise I have nowhere to receive a correction.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/4/12, The Book of Zohar “Bereshit”

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Tuning into Revelation

165Before reading The Book of Zohar, we must attune ourselves so that this reading will benefit us. The Zohar speaks about the correction of the soul, i.e., about the correction of the connection between us, and that is why, while reading it we must try to make the corrected states described in it come true in us. This means that we desire to reveal what The Zohar is talking about.

Revelation is not understanding in the mind. How can I understand at all what I’ve never seen? It is possible to see only on condition that new modes of sensation are formed in me; vision is a sensation in our desires, our vessels of perception. And the sensation can arise only according to my special inner state when it will correspond to what is described in The Zohar.

This can be achieved only if I rise to the level of the bestower as The Zohar requires. How is this possible? If I connect with the environment, I can express the measure of my bestowal with regard to it.

Therefore, even before we open The Book of Zohar, we should strive to connect together in such a state, at such a level, and with such power that will be suitable for the revelation of The Zohar in the connection between us.

To the extent that everyone annuls themselves and we unite together in mutual bestowal and guarantee, to this extent we can reach a state in which we already feel what The Zohar is talking about, at least to a minimal degree. And all this depends only on the strength of the unity between us that must be at the height of the first spiritual degree. Then we will feel what The Zohar is talking about.

Baal HaSulam talks about this in the Introduction To The Study Of The Ten Sefirot, “Through the yearning and the great desire to understand what they are learning, they awaken upon themselves the Lights that surround their souls.” In fact, all our work is to strive to be in this state, to feel it. Therefore, all that is required of us is a desire to feel the need for the revelation.
[43858]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/11, The Book of Zohar “Mishpatim”

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You Get What You Ask For

243.07Elokim [God] in the Bible. “In the beginning God created” is the Bina that emanates to the Nukva de ZA. He elicited thirteen words: THE, HEAVEN, AND-THE, EARTH, AND-THE EARTH, WAS, EMPTY, AND-CHAOTIC, AND-THE-DARKNESS, OVER, THE-FACE, OF-THE-ABYSS, AND-THE-SPIRIT…

These thirteen words imply to the same thirteen petals of the rose among the thorns, the sea that stands over the twelve oxen, which are preparation and qualification for the Assembly of Israel to receive the thirteen qualities of Rachamim (Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, Zohar for All, Vol. 1, “The Rose“, Item 1).

There are upper systems that filter and restrict the light so the lower ones can receive it. Similarly, Malchut tries to ensure that only the lights that can be received for the benefit of the lower descend from the first nine Sefirot above it.

How does Malchut know exactly what it can receive for the benefit of the lower? Everything is determined by the need of the lower, the desire they raise to it. Therefore, according to the awakening from below (Itaruta de Letata), that is, a prayer (MAN) on our part, an answer (MAD) comes to us from above.

Therefore, a person cannot complain that he does not receive. If he doesn’t ask, he doesn’t receive. If he asks, he will receive. But the request must be such that it raises the right desire, a spiritual vessel, Kli. Then there will be no problems and of course, you will get light into it. The request itself, in essence, is a vessel. If it is correct, the light comes.

The right request means that you feel a genuine need, a desire, for something. In essence, you always get what you ask for. So if you say the Creator causes you suffering, you asked for it. And if you claim He brings you goodness, you asked for it. You always receive according to your request.

If so, how can it be that we are asking for something bad?! Yes, we are asking for bad things. If I want to receive fulfillment in my desire to enjoy, then receive it I shall! And why do I feel bad? This already depends on the whole system. But effectively, you got what you asked for.

We do not understand how unimpeachably the Good That Does Good works; “Please, receive!” is how parents raise their children: “Do you want this? Go ahead!” And then what? “Oh, no!” “But this is what you wanted.”

This is how the Creator acts toward us also.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/11, The Book of Zohar — Introduction, “The Rose”

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Man’s Dialogue with the Creator

239Prayer is an appeal to the Creator, which is called raising MAN, (female waters), that is, the burning desire of a person, which he raises from himself to the Creator. Of course, then the Creator will be able to answer his request.

Prayer is a genuine request of a person to the Creator, the Creator waits for it and answers. Prayer is a person’s connection with the Creator.

Do not think that prayer is inherent only to man. The still, vegetative, and animate nature in their existence are constantly in prayer. But their prayers are organically part of nature because it is known in advance what a stone, plant, or some animal will want. Therefore, their desire does not need a special expression; it acts automatically.

Whereas a person is obliged to work on his prayer, and therefore he is given free will. To the extent that a person organizes his prayer in accordance with what the Creator wants to give him, to that extent he will succeed and establish a mutual connection with the Creator: “I am for my Beloved, and my Beloved is for me.”

The Creator prepares an answer for a person in advance and thereby awakens him to prayer. The person must search and find with which prayer to appeal in order to give the Creator the opportunity to answer and help him. Then there is a mutual connection between them in the form of: “I am for my Beloved, and my Beloved is for me.”

The moment we ask, the Creator is already helping us, and even earlier because when He awakens us to turn to Him, He already helps us with this, as it is said: “Just call, and I will answer.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/14/22, “Purifying the Heart” 

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Readiness to Work for Others

938.02Question: In what prayer should those who are physically gathered in the Arava and the entire world Kli be? Is it to dissolve not in this beauty surrounding us, but in another beauty—in a friend.

Answer: The most important thing is to annul yourself after all. Annul and throw yourself into the arms of your friends so to speak. And everyone should do so. It may sound incorrect, but when a person annuls himself, he wants to feel not himself, but only others.

He wants to apply his strength to them. That’s what they want, and that’s what I’m going to do, as if I don’t have my “I,” there’s nothing, just strength, like a machine. I am ready to work for others. They want to connect, I will connect them. What they want, I will do, and I myself have no desires of my own, no goals of my own.

This is what we should, in principle, make of ourselves. We will reach our goal very quickly when we are all united and discover the Creator in connection with each other.

It’s in front of us, and it’s close.
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From lesson 1 “Arava” Convention in Europe – Lithuania 2022, 7/22/22

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Dangerous Love

712.03Question: If the Creator reveals His endless love to us, then we will begin to neglect Him, and therefore, as protection, He gives us blows and rejects us. Why is it necessary to do so?

Answer: This is done on purpose so that we change our state. This neglect is the result of a new level of egoism emerging and unfolding in you.

Question: Why can’t we immediately embrace all of the Creator’s love?

Answer: You do not have any abilities for this. We need to work on it. After all, sensation and the understanding of sensations, i.e., the heart and mind must be together. You cannot just feel it! There must be a period of awareness of the cause, action, effect of these sensations, certain control over them, then the next state, and so on. There are a lot of different switches here.

It all depends on how ready you are for this, how much you want to take part in all the metamorphoses happening in you and your willingness to call them upon yourself. This will reduce the time to adapt to the new world.

This is a completely new world in which you will feel that there is neither time nor space, there is no life or death. You will look at your body as at an animal that is next to you; well, you stayed with it, made friends with it, like with your dog or a bull that grazes in your yard, and now you are parting.

Moreover, you feel this animalistic state that also has its own egoistic form. But since it supported you and brought you closer to spirituality, then in this egoistic form it begins to enter the spiritual as an integral part of it. Therefore, there is no death, there is no disappearance. On the contrary, it is like all your inanimate, vegetative, and animate desires that join your next state because they led you to this.

Starting from the appearance of our universe, that point that developed in you has now led you to exit our universe into the next one. This is a very special state, an historical moment. Although there is no history and time.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Dangerous Love” 1/23/14

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Where Should the Appeal to the Creator Come from?

938.07Question: How can one form the request to cancel the egoistic shell and exit to the real internal connection of the hearts? What is this request? How to express it?

Answer: This is a question that has no answer. You yourself, by your own efforts should get close to feeling how you need to ask in order to deserve an answer. In the meantime, you have not earned an answer because your demand is not yet sufficient either in strength or in content.

Look how it is written in the fifth excerpt, Maor VaShemesh: “The most important is true connection and love and affection among the friends. This causes all the salvations and sweetening of judgments. When you gather together in love and friendship, by this, all the judgments are removed, sweetened with mercy, and complete mercy and disclosed Hassadim [mercy/grace] are revealed in the world by connecting.”

This is what you need to think about. The appeal to the Creator must come from connection, from the correct relationship between us. It is incredibly hard, but this is how it should be arranged.

And what are you asking for? You have to reach a state where you have done the maximum that you can to get closer to your friends and found that there is still a gap between you. Feeling this gap, you shout to the Creator to help you jump over it. Then it will work.
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From the “Arava” Convention in Europe—Lithuania 2022, Lesson 1, 7/22/22

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Pray For Men

627.2Question: We have always felt dependent on the men’s group and it is with great trepidation that we are now revealing that the men’s group also depends on us in some way. We want to find the place where we need to apply our effort, something that depends solely on us.

How can we come to such a prayer? How can we come to the point that depends only on women? We would like to give a helping hand to men who need us now, and we feel this.

Answer: There is no need to give any helping hand to men. You should just pray for them. Women, as I said, know how to do it. Pray for them, and you will succeed.
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From the “Arava” Convention in Europe—Lithuania 2022, Lesson 1, 7/22/22

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Prayer Given by the Creator

261Question: What prayer has the Creator already put into our mouths?

Answer: Anything you feel for the Creator, you will discover that this is the prayer He put into you.

It will seem to you at first that this prayer is yours, the request is yours, and everything is yours. But in fact, this is not so. All of it is what He put into you initially.
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From the “Arava” Convention in Europe – Lithuania 2022, Lesson 1, 7/22/22

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