Question: Quite often I don’t understand what the lesson is about: Whether it is about spirituality or about the corporeal life. How can we distinguish between the corporeal life and spirituality?

Answer: On the whole, what enters me through the five senses, through the “inlets” of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch, is called “this world.”

If I develop an additional sense in me, meant for feeling others, then in my perception this sensation is divided into five parts: Ketter (K), Hochma (H), Bina (B), Zeir Anpin (ZA), and Malchut (M). I develop this sense from the point in the heart, by wanting to exit myself and to exist in the group together with the friends. It is among them that I discover the five senses that are outside the body, that make up my spiritual “body.”

This transition requires a period of preparation that is carried out by the Light. We cannot attain this by ourselves, but all our efforts summon the Light that Reforms, and eventually we acquire the new vessel of the soul.

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Question: What is my free choice in relation to my thoughts?

Answer: All thoughts that are within me at the moment, all sensations and understandings, all data that I as if “scan” and then process, through synthesis and analysis, all these parameters are given from Above. What I feel, how I feel, what kinds of decisions I make, all this is already predetermined from Above, right up to this moment. One can ask now: What will be from this moment on? In this “from now on” there is a parameter called my free choice.

With regards to thoughts, free choice is in the external desire and the external mind that belong to the group. After the shattering I am divided into two parts. In my sensations, one part is outside of me, whereas I perceive the second part internally as myself. Thereby my inner heart and mind appear, meaning myself, as well as an external heart and mind, meaning the group. All that I need to do is to begin to connect these two parts together, into one Kli.

Here my struggle and problems begin, and this comprises the order of the work and all corrections. By trying to come to terms with the part that constantly demonstrates to me its confrontation and opposition, I feel that I need the Creator, the only one who can connect these two parts together. The stronger I need Him to reconcile these two opposing parts together, to that degree I agree with the Creator, with His nature, with His existence, and with His rule, I agree that this property would govern me.

The more that I try to annul myself before the group, the more obvious it becomes to me that I am not ready to subdue myself before the others. Ultimately, I will “beat myself black and blue” to finally clarify that I’m not ready to yield under any circumstances. I reach such hatred that it’s like Mount Sinai (“Sinah” means “hatred” in Hebrew). But because I’ve tried to annul myself so many times I realize that I must do this, and therefore I feel the need for the help of the upper force.
[105639]
From the 1^st part to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/13, Shamati #68

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Question: What do I need to do with the thoughts that come to me?

Answer: I need to become an independent, objective judge about what happens to me, without any craftiness or emotion, like an external, unbiased observer. This means that I try to be within my point in the heart, outside my body, outside of my present “self.” Every desire or thought that is awakened in me I accept as coming from the Creator, from “there is none else besides Him,” as a game that He plays with me. On the other hand, I need to decide what to do with this and begin to work accordingly.

Everything that happens is given to me as obstacles. It simply cannot be otherwise since as a rule, before the Machsom there are no good sensations. So, first of all, I need to be thankful for all that comes and accept that all this is for my own good and given to me for the work. And then, I need to start working and to try to build something practical above this obstacle.

While the obstacle remains, I rise above it and build an opposite relationship with it. In this manner, through the group, I search for the source from which I received such thought or desire. I want to unite this thought or desire with its source so that “Israel, Torah, and the Creator will be one.” Israel is myself, acting with my thoughts and desires to transform everything that I receive from the Creator, both good and bad, into material, an area, for our adhesion, connection.

This is called acting according to the condition of “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.” And then I wait, being ready to receive a new obstacle. Someone screams at me, or something happens, or even without an external event my soul feels bad—that’s the Creator is acting on me directly or indirectly. Again, I have to work on this. That is, I search for every opportunity to combine all that happens to me, all the states, with the Creator so as to ultimately accept any state with my heart and soul and to see in it only one thing: His desire to embrace me.

Success depends on whether I see it in this particular way, do I thank the Creator, and do I hurry to embrace Him? To embrace means to come to complete agreement, up to self-sacrifice.
[105864]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can we amplify the influence of the Light upon us during the study? What exactly depends on the students?

Answer: We only study about what depends on a person. What isn’t brought into effect by a person doesn’t relate to us, and we cannot understand it for the time being.

It depends on a person to come to the group, to be among his friends, to prepare for the lesson, and to connect to the lesson together with the friends so that everyone will realize that they need to feel what they study. This is the meaning of the lesson, and we can only feel it in the connection between us.

This means that the books tell us about the connection between the friends who desperately want to connect under the influence of the study, of the Light, so that in it, to attain the Creator or their general collective soul in which they will discover Him. This is the meaning of our existence, our development, the study, and of all our activities.

In order to do that, we have to study the articles of Rabash and Baal HaSulam about the connection of the friends in the group, about how the study should be conducted, and about how we should connect in our thoughts and intentions. It is actually very simple: a person, a group, and the Creator who is revealed in the group. And that’s all. Only the right general concentration can generate the desirable result.
[105852]
From the Virtual Lesson 4/21/13

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Question: Why does spiritual advancement always come through feeling a greater burden, although we work in the group and on fulfilling the method?

Answer: How can you advance if you don’t feel a greater burden, if you don’t have the ego, if you don’t feel that you must correct something? How will you ascend? Where is the mass that you must correct, the mass of which you must sculpt your form that is similar to the Creator?

This means that the ego that was given to us at birth and that grows on every level is the matter from which we form the soul. The soul is the same ego that is made in a form that resembles the Creator. If instead of swallowing everything into the ego, I try to pass the upper Light through me to everyone else, the ego becomes spiritual matter, a Masach (screen) and the Reflected Light. It is then that the soul is formed from it. We learn about this in the “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” and in Talmud Eser Sefirot.

The Creator created desire so that we can work with it correctly. The desire falls into the egoistic intention. By changing the intention to the opposite, altruistic, intention with the help of the Light, we use this desire in order to bestow. It must constantly develop in us so we ascend all the time and become more similar to the Creator. So, without the constant “falls” into the ego and the corrections that follow them, we cannot ascend.

Just as we walk on two legs, stepping alternately on the left foot and on the right foot, there is also an action and an opposite action in our work. It cannot be any other way in our world. It is because the one force and the other force can only be opposite to Him. How can it be made similar to the Creator, meaning to bring the created being to a state to which it is on the same level, of the same status, as the Creator? This is why the created being was created from matter that acquires the Creator’s form, His image, from the form opposite to Him. A person’s descent is the same as an ascent; it is already the embryo of the next level.
[105849]
From the Virtual Lesson 4/21/13

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 45: And that Light of Nefesh is called “the Light of the holy still in the world Assiya.” This is because it corresponds to the purity of the still part of the will to receive in man’s body. It shines in spirituality like the still category in corporeality (see Item 35), whose particles have no individual motion, but only collective motion, common to all the items equally. So it is with the Light of Partzuf Nefesh of Assiya: Although there are six hundred and thirteen organs in it, …these changes are not apparent in it, but only a general Light, whose action enfolds them all equally, without distinction of details.

The still level is willing to give up its desire and to be under the Masach and restriction, in darkness, in concealment. It’s as if it doesn’t exist at all, holding on to one thing only: adhesion to the Creator, adhesion that it is capable of, meaning minimal one.

Above this state there are the levels of active self-annulment before the Creator that the still level cannot implement. However, it’s capable of passive adhesion within the limits of its abilities, and it’s not after self-benefit in any way.

As we all know, there is a wide variety of different forms on the still level: from the simplest forms to the most complex ones, like corals that are the link between the still and the vegetative levels. There is a difference between gold and diamonds, a diamond is different than copper…. Moreover, the vegetative level belongs to the soil, in which the plants grow. Where do all the differences between these forms of matter come from? The difference is in the levels of Aviut (thickness), in the “layers” of the desire, which one has to give up in order to stay in adhesion with the Creator.

This is how the pyramid of matter is built in our world: There is no shortage of “gravel,” but there are few “diamonds.” Coal burnt in power stations and diamonds are actually made of the same material, but they differ in quality. The difference is in the desire to receive of the still level, and when we relinquish it, we adhere to the Creator on a minimal level.

It’s not a simple level in any way, and it begins from self-restraint, self-annulment, restriction. This is the quality of the first spiritual level.

Question: The still level also develops and evolves in our world. How does that go along with absolute self-annulment?

Answer: Evolution occurs as a result of an external force and not from within. On the whole, the still level “lives” its life. The atoms, molecules, the crystals, and the special vibrations—the whole universe is in continuous motion. “Still” doesn’t mean “balanced.” The ultimate balance is achieved only at the end of correction.

In the meantime, the imbalance evokes movement in the still matter: It doesn’t grow, but it “holds on” to the stable state, according to the program of self-preservation. Thus, the movements and changes on the still level are meant to keep it on the still level.

Take the example of radioactive radiation, which certain matter needs in order to remain static. The wind blows, volcanoes erupt, and the still nature needs all that in order to be more balanced and preserve itself on a level that is as still as possible. The action in this case is not in accordance with its goal.

Question: Is there “recognition of evil” on the still level?

Answer: In the still level of the spiritual world there is everything. It’s a whole unique plan, part of Malchut of Infinity. Everything happens and develops from here. Without the still nature there would be nothing; it’s the basis for everything. Everything that happens on the next levels, the vegetative, animate, and speaking, happens thanks to the special connections of the still elements.

Life itself is built on the contact between still parts. They cannot connect independently, but a force comes from Above, and thanks to this addition, a collection of separate materials becomes a metabolism that we call “life.” Similarly, an addition of Light creates the animate level above the vegetative level and the speaking level above the animate level.

Question: What is the main condition for the ascent from the still to the vegetative level?

Answer: A person ends his development in all the 613 desires of the still level, covers them by restriction, by annulment, and remains in adhesion. It’s just like a drop of semen adheres to the mother’s womb while on the still level.

In this state you are ready for the Creator to join you and to perform a “surgery” on you, which we call “the transition to the vegetative level.” Additional Light is necessary for that, and it’s very hard to bear: “Do anything but not that…” In order to receive this additional Light and to enter spiritual life, you have to relinquish yourself, to rise above the concepts of life and death that we can imagine today, and to start a new life that is totally disconnected from you.

Question: So does the original matter that the Creator created remain the same, and what determines everything is the additional Light, an additional bestowal? Is the level of development higher if there is more bestowal? Do we have to summon the Light consciously and willingly on the speaking level?

Answer: This is called raising a request for correction (MAN). This is the only thing we lack. I am ready for the Creator to “operate” on me, I agree to that and I want it. He simply carries out my desire so that I will adhere to Him.

Question: Do we want to enter our first level, the still level during the convention this coming weekend?

Answer: You will not be able to enter the still level with regards to the Creator if you don’t do that with regards to the friend. No way. I repeat, the main thing here is self-annulment.

Then, on the vegetative level we will rise even higher and will learn to annul ourselves in motion. For example, on the still level I annul myself before the friends a “thousand dollars’ worth” and hold on to this standard, and on the vegetative level I gradually add to it.
[105654]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/21/13, “The Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: What does it mean to “put oneself completely into the hands of the environment”?

Answer: It means to feel, to realize that my future is bound up in the group. I have to establish relations with the friends, I have to integrate in them. Whether they want it or not, I have to be inside, at the very center, and that’s it. I have to dissolve among them, and even if they don’t feel that, it does not matter. I have to be like an embryo in the womb, a baby in their hands—in any way and at any cost that they will ask. There is no question about a price: Whatever they tell me, I will do.

Thus, I am beginning to realize what self-annulment is. And this teaches me how to reach the point of Machsom.
[105951]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Mutual Guarantee”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: “When all of Israel became responsible for one another.” [In other words, each individual is completed by others.] “Because the Torah was not given to them before each and every one from Israel was asked if he agreed to take upon himself the precept of loving others in the full measure, expressed in the words: “Love thy friend as thyself.”

Here we see the description of the situation when everyone feels that the main question surfaces in him. Everyone asks himself: “Do I really agree to love the other?”

This is a principal question and it determines my whole life. After all, I don’t want to go on living in this “interest club”; I am here in order to attain something. I’m here all the time, and put a lot of money and energy into it, although I could succeed in many other areas. In fact, there are many very talented people here who can have everything the world can offer, but they have given up the rewards of this world, and sit in the lessons motionless. Is that right? Is this the way one should live his life?

So, we have to ask this question about love persistently: “When will it finally surface?” “When will the need of loving the other as myself grab me by the throat?” Why do I need to analyze the current situation as to how much I love myself now and how I relate to others?

After all, I see myself as part of the nation of Israel, which means those who want to reach Yashar-El (straight to the Creator), to be similar to Him by actions of bestowal. This is the only way we can reach adhesion with Him, which is the purpose of creation. What can I give Him? The only chance I have to learn the attribute of bestowal from Him is to be like Him in my attitude to others. I have to discover that He loves everyone and bestows upon them. Then by operating in the same way towards others, I become like Him, I am in adhesion with Him, and I evince Him in my action that realizes the love of others.

This means that each and every one in Israel would take it upon himself to care and work for each member of the nation, and to satisfy all their every needs, no less than the measure imprinted in him to care for his own needs.

This is already the measure of my attitude towards the friend: to care for him as much as I care for myself. It’s similar to how a mother constantly worries about her baby. Until I reach that, I don’t fulfill the goal of Israel, don’t have the minimal equivalence of form with the Creator, and I remain on the “animate” level. But if I care about others more than about myself, I am called “human.”

Question: What is the “nation of Israel”?

Answer: These are people who have to reach adhesion with the Creator. Practically, I identify them by their ability to act mutually, to make mutual efforts. With whom can I stand before Mount Sinai? With all due respect, it isn’t with members of parliament and not with my neighbors, but with people who understand me and who are ready to step forward with me on the path of mutual concessions and mutual connection in order to discover the upper force in it and to bring Him contentment. They are my “nation” for the time being.

Later this concept will expand and envelop the whole world.
[105713]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (The Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: We are now on the threshold of three big conventions. What state does the world group need to reach as a result of the upcoming conventions?

Answer: At these conventions, we need to reach the entrance to the upper world, to begin to feel it, at least temporarily!

Before a person enters the upper world, he moves like a worm that tries to get out of a radish. He sticks his head out a little bit and pulls back, comes out and back again. He moves like a piston, back and forth.

Similarly, we do the same: We stick our heads out and back, stick out and back, until we accumulate the desired pressure and use it to finally come out of that radish, from our world. Thus, there are moments when we gnaw at the peel of that radish and begin to break it.

This is a difficult step, but I hope we will do it at our conventions and at least begin to get outside, to breathe in a different reality.
[105856]
From the Virtual Lesson 4/21/13

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Question: Today people feel the gap between real life and their psychological well-being. I remember our grandparents didn’t experience this discrepancy. Meanwhile, for a contemporary person (even if he has a family) a good psychological atmosphere is separated from the material well-being. Is there a way to demonstrate that these things are nevertheless connected?

Answer: It doesn’t matter if they are strangers to each other or a family. They still have to attend the same seminars, listen to the same explanations, thus rising above their egoism.

Before, our egoism was not as big as it is now! Once upon a time there lived “a husband and wife”; they had a “hen” (meaning a household, a home, a vegetable garden, etc). A husband worked, his wife took care of the home. It was an old-fashioned household arrangement. The family life revolved around the home, community, children, and so on.

Today, it’s nothing like that. At this time, we all work for somebody else, for some society, for something unintelligible. In the morning, we take our kids to kindergartens, then we rush to our jobs, and after we are done for the day, we head to supermarkets…. From there, we run back home, quickly warm food, feed everybody as soon as possible, wash the kids, and go to bed. The next day, we repeat the same pattern.

Is it similar in any way to the previous way that family life was set up? Before, people used to have a home, a household. Today, we only call it a household. Everybody has individual possessions; even spouses have separate bank accounts.

So, we have to teach people at our seminars to rise above their egoism and unite beyond it. Otherwise, family will cease to exist since our egoism cuts us off from others, pushes us aside, while we take no action in response. And the state officials cannot do anything here. Two egoists cannot be forced to stay in one territory.

Why do I need a family? I go to work and earn my own money; I don’t need anyone! If I need to, in the evening I can bring home whoever I want. I can go to a supermarket, buy ready-made foods, warm them in microwave, and eat them for dinner. The whole arrangement serves the purpose of allowing everybody to live separately. Manufacturers of consumer goods get maximum benefits if there is only one person in the household since two single people will buy more of everything: refrigerators, TV sets, and washing machines.…
[105212]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” 4/2/13

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