Question: Can an evil thought be equated to slander?

Answer: Humanity is like a malignant tumor inside nature’s healthy body. The body consists of the still, vegetative, and animate levels of this world, which are in complete harmony with general nature, and under its control that leaves no room for freedom of choice. That’s why these levels cannot be held liable for anything at all since they fully obey natural instincts.

Egoistic nature acts within human beings and motivates them. This makes us different from other beings since we have a tendency to harm others. There is no other creature in this world (a stone, a plant, or an animal) that harms others except humans. People enjoy when others feel bad. This is what is called the human evil.

We don’t kill each other for the sake of food or to avoid dying of hunger. If that were the case, we wouldn’t touch others after satisfying our appetite, as animals do. Human beings want to “swallow” the entire world even after they receive everything they need, and that’s only because they don’t want others to have it.

A desire to harm our neighbors, take advantage of them, and enjoy somebody else’s troubles is called the evil of egoism, which we have to correct. Because of this quality, we act as a foreign body and “infiltrate” the general picture of all of nature, including the higher worlds.

Being a cancerous tumor that strives to ingest everything around pertains solely to this material world and exquisitely to humans. As a result, humanity kills itself because it destroys the environment that becomes unable to feed it any longer. This is how a cancerous tumor behaves in a human body: It devours everything around it. When there is nothing left, the body dies and the tumor dies together with it. Nowadays, we see that humanity behaves the same way and approaches a lethal finale at a tremendous speed.

In order to cure the disease, we have to understand how to approach this phenomenon. We can perform mechanical and physical actions, or we can act at the level of desires and thoughts. We can perform mechanical actions with our bodies even without the desire or much thought. Corporeal bodies are capable of moving either because of persuasion or under outside pressure.

Besides, we have an ability to correct the connection between us by following our desire, meaning from the heart that embodies our feelings. Moreover, we can add our thought, plan, and intention, that is, our reason.

One has only three opportunities to correct one’s attitude to the environment: an action, a desire, and a thought. Out of these three ways, the most effective and powerful is a thought. Thoughts influence our desires that in their turn impact our bodies.

However, there is a different way to activate ourselves, as it is said: “Hearts (desires) follow the actions.” Desires change thoughts. This flexible remedy can be used in various ways.

Connection among people defines the shape of the universe. Corrupt connection is called slander. It stands for a bad attitude to others and an unwillingness to maintain healthy connections and mutual communication, in similarity to organs of a single body, which help each other and make the body healthy. All parameters, such as blood pressure, temperature, fluids, and so on, everything should be in balance. If some bodily organs do not maintain correct interaction with others, it is immediately seen in medical tests.

Everything is built accordingly: ecology, politics, finances, and human relationships. Divorces, depressions, and drugs are the consequences of the imbalance in the system of our connection. It’s not terrible if one person is spoiled—the major thing is a corrupt connection between us. It is the real reason for all our problems. And an incorrect connection is called slander.
[103168]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/13, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: And you find that all the seeds from which the good states grow are only the corrupted deeds themselves, meaning that all the exposed evils that come from under the hands of the wicked in the generation join and accumulate to a great sum, until they weigh so heavily that the public can no longer bear them. Then, they rise up and ruin it and create a more desirable state.

All evil must be exposed because the good will sprout out of it. It is impossible to achieve the good unless it is preceded by the revelation of evil.

There is nothing new in it. Abraham spoke about this issue. It is well known both in Kabbalah and outside of Kabbalah. History, nature, and the dialectic process serve as proof to it. Each state lasts until its shortcomings “ripen” to the degree that they become obvious. Namely these shortcomings destroy the current state and shape a subsequent one. This is a scientific and historic fact.

The same laws apply to humans. It is not an accident that children do not obey their parents; it is natural.

Question: If the evil is unavoidable, why do we call the Creator “Good that does Good?”

Answer: It is so because it characterizes a developmental tendency oriented to the goal, rather than the path per se. Can one develop if he feels great? The state of complete comfort doesn’t allow further advancement. What would push us forward if everything were fine?

The problem is that we take good things that happen to us for granted. We don’t value the positive events in our lives, nor do we consider them important. And vice versa, we treat hardships as an unfair burden.

In other words, we evaluate good and bad things on different scales. The final outcome of the deeds we accomplished during our lifespan turns out to be opposite to what we considered them to be. We simply cannot avoid the “pricks” of life. If someone says bad things about us, we boil for many months until we find a way to repay the debt. Everything that we bear in mind and heart against those who insulted us seems normal and natural to us: “He deserves it!”

Question: Still, shouldn’t there be a balance between troubles and joys? Instead, we are told that we are beholden to the Creator from the very beginning. As it is written, “‘All is in deposit, and a fortress spreads over all of life. The store is open and the shopkeeper sells by deferred payment; the book is open and the hand writes. And all who wish to borrow may come and borrow…’” (Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”). What exactly does He lend me?

Answer: The thing is that you can take goods from the shop now and pay for them later. Today, grocery stores use the system where their owners keep track of what their regular customers bought on credit, and at the end of month the latter have to pay their bills. On our way to the goal, we also are allowed to borrow. Moreover, we’ll pay our debts not at intermediate stages, but the very end of our path, when the goal is achieved.

At this time, we only beg the Host to grant us powers, desiring to obtain certain virtues: “Where is Your generosity? Where is Your empathy?” Take everything you want from the shelves; everything is at our disposal. You will pay your debts at the very end of the path when your job is complete.

In fact, there is nothing to return since we will change so much that our indebtedness will disappear.

So, don’t think that the Creator needs our payment. No, He needs only our attitude. He wants us to agree with His calculations and nothing more than that. Our “healthy” egoism prompts us that there is a trick on the Creator’s behalf, but it is not true. With our mere consent to receive the power for correction, we will immediately receive it and will pay off our bills.
[102891]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/13, “The Peace” 

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Question: How do we build the right intention in us?

Answer: The intention is the result of the work of the person, the result of the Light that influences him, as a reaction to his right efforts to be included into the group, from his intention to acquire an intention for the sake of bestowal. Only the Light can give him this intention, its power.

When the Light illuminates the center of the group, everyone is connected to that center as to a well of living water, and then everyone and all together receive the Light that Reforms. In this way, thanks to the intention, we correct the desire so that it will be under the control of the intention. This is called the people of Israel conquering the land, meaning the power of intention.

This is the work in the group and during the study, where everyone intends to attract the Light that Reforms. This is continuous work to attract the Light to the center of the group, into the connection between us, our readiness to be one. Thanks to the illumination that comes, our vessels of reception are expanded “620” times. This is, by correcting each and every step, every small desire, with the intention in order to bestow, we build an immense desire that contains many distinctions. Every part swells 620 times.

The center of the group is the Shechina, our connection as one person with one heart. This is not our whim, but the condition of the spiritual statute, which demands this kind of connection from us in order to correspond to the Light. So, to the degree of the effort that we invest, the Light will act on us and help us to really connect.

The moment that we reach the first minimal degree of connection, we begin to discover the Light within us. This is called crossing the Machsom (the border to the upper world), birth into the spiritual world, meaning to a state of absolute bestowal to everyone and from all of us to the Creator.

The Light performs corrections, while our task is to exert effort.
[105171]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How is it possible to identify where I am acting on my own, denying the leadership of the Creator?

Answer: It’s possible to identify this place very simply. It’s when you are angry and don’t agree with the higher supervision, are detached from the group and from the Creator, and carry out your own program. This shows that you are not adhered to the Creator.

If you notice that in particular desires and states you don’t feel the control of the Creator, even if you want to adhere to the higher supervision and advance, this means that this desire is damaged and requires correction. Your feeling will not change until you correct it. You can’t say that everything is okay from the start because the goal is to reach unity, adherence with the Creator. Therefore you have no choice; you must work with all these states, desires, and intentions to reach adherence through them where past, present, and future connect; you and the Creator are always connected, in all actions, thoughts, and intentions.

When a problem is discovered, we must solve it as if the Creator doesn’t exist. Even though you know that “There is none else beside Him,” you are found in an opposite state. You are angry, and the anger is a sign of ego.

So what is there to be angry about if everything happens according to the desire of the higher supervision? But in spite of this, a person has free choice. It hurts to see that it’s possible to make corrections and avoid suffering from unpleasant states, to give the Creator satisfaction, and yet the person is not doing this.

There is a clash here between the principle, “There is none else beside Him” and “Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before,” the control by one force, “the free choice of the person,” and the “power of many forces.”

We don’t understand this until we reach the first discovery, the middle line, in which two opposites meet. Then we understand what faith above reason is, where the two opposite states, the plus and the minus, meet. “There is none else beside Him” and “If I am not for myself who will be for me” complete each other within the person regarding past, present, and future.

Without this kind of vessel of bestowal, we cannot connect the two opposites and understand the unity of higher governance. Therefore, Kabbalists simply suggest to us how one should act without entering too deeply into detailed explanations. For in order to understand these explanations to some degree, we need to have corrected properties. Everything is established according to the Kli of our perception. If the person acts correctly, then they are discovered within him gradually and he is ready to feel and accept this particular part.
[105039]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What do the students who live abroad and are found in various cultures need to do if they want to feel that they are part of the people of Israel?

Answer: I will try to explain the difference between someone who is a Jew from birth, genetically, and a person who doesn’t have these genes, yet has an inclination to be “Yashar-Kel,” meaning belonging to the Creator.

It is said that someone who converts to Judaism is born again. This means that he is a Jew 100%, and even more because he originated with a more distant desire. And if he corrects it, he becomes closer and more internal than the rest. Rabbi Akiva, from whom all our Torah comes, was not originally a Jew. In the period when the people of Israel were on a spiritual level, there were numerous great Kabbalists who originated from the nations of the world.

There is no disparagement here, rather the opposite, because all of the desire that we need for correction is specifically found with the nations of the world. It is said that the Creator first wanted to give the Torah to the nations of the world, meaning for the correction of the AHP. And Israel, the Galgalta ve Eynaim are only a transition towards this correction.

Therefore, the people who approach the collective correction and don’t belong to the people of Israel according to their origin are the pioneering part of the AHP, those “pioneers” from the collective soul that require correction. This means that this is its most important part.

So, they come to us and serve as the conduit between us and the entire world. I hope very much that they will develop the system of integral education, will begin to teach it, and pass it on to the entire world. Each nation has a different culture and a different mentality. So, it is only in this way that it will be possible to help in the correction of the world.

These people are expected to get a much higher reward, and their work is much more important than those who belong to the people of Israel from birth because they are the true conduit and include within them the desires of the AHP. Along with this, they raise themselves to the level of GE.

This picture is still not completely clear, but eventually it will become clear how rich and important the idea of the “convert” is, how many roles it has. A “convert” is a concept, a role, serving as a conduit between GE and AHP that elevates the will to receive toward correction.

There was a time when the people of Israel also left all the other people in Babylon. The spiritual sparks were discovered gradually within the collective desire, layer after layer, beginning with Adam HaRishon. After that, the sparks that remained from the shattering and were called the “points in the heart” were discovered in Abraham and thousands of other Babylonians whom he took from there to the land of Canaan.

These people were a part of all of humanity in the beginning. After that they gathered into a group in accordance with their collective desire and readiness to love thy neighbor as thyself, so that in the center of this connection the higher power was discovered. This is how it is even now. So, this includes both those who were once part of this gathering, as well as those who weren’t in it yet, but are waking up now.

For every one of us, both those who belong to the physical people of Israel and the spiritual Israel, there is a task within the collective system. But it is still unknown to us. But in general, someone who comes from the nations of the world and joins with the people of Israel has a very important role that is yet to be discovered.

They are specifically the ones who establish movement towards the process of correction. GE cannot advance by themselves; they lack desire, lack the power of movement. Therefore, it is said that the nations of the world will carry Israel on their shoulders to Jerusalem to build the Temple.

It is impossible to reach the Creator, the spiritual Kli called the Temple, without the movement that is carried out by the nations of the world, those people who understand this task, this process, this goal. Israel cannot do this on their own. Therefore, our work with all the groups in the world and our concern for our brothers who are part of the nations of the world and are parts of all the groups in the world, is so important. The importance of these groups will be discovered more and more.
[105167]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/15/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: The workshops dealing with the mutual integral cooperation are hard internal work. People make great efforts especially when they become integrally communicative, so what should we focus on?

Answer: A person should prepare before the workshop and say to himself: “Calm down. Look at everyone with a smile, even if it is an artificial smile at first, and try to smile more naturally with time. Look “into” the person you are talking to; try to love him; try to get close to him.”

Thus, we gradually focus before the workshop because we want to find additional positive attributes inside us, that are hidden somewhere deep within us. Nature, however, reveals only our negative attributes, and we want to balance them.

So we have to start by such preparations: Let’s hold hands like children and sing kids’ songs. It is very relaxing. Can you imagine respectable men and women in their fifties, sitting together and singing kids’ songs?

A person has to free himself from his worries and detach himself from everything he has in society, at work, and at home. Everyone feels good when they return to their childhood that was free from worries; we all remember it warmly, except in rare cases.

So do relaxation exercises, play a little game so people will feel sympathetic toward one another. Besides, you can simply give each one a task: “Say something nice about everyone,” and thus begin the workshop.
[105032]
From a Talk on Integral Education 4/2/13

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 41: Bear in mind that the reality of all the worlds is generally divided into five worlds called a) Adam Kadmon, b) Atzilut, c) Beria, d) Yetzira, and e) Assiya.

These “worlds” are the levels of my internal closeness to the Creator, to bestowal. It’s as if I look through their prism. At the same time, I can accept bestowal on a certain level of Aviut (thickness) from zero to four. On the whole, these are all levels of attainment until full adhesion.

Question: What do we need these worlds, these concealments, for?

Answer: So that we will gradually discover the Creator according to our equivalence of form with Him; it’s a law: Every phenomenon in reality can only be attained according to an equivalence of form. As long as I, according to my egoistic nature, am external to it and am not compatible with it, I cannot feel it. When the point in the heart awakens in me, I begin to feel my oppositeness to the Creator, and then I can grow and increase my point and my closeness to Him. But until then, I am detached from Him by my ego: He is total bestowal and I am total receiving, and I have no connection with Him. This is how the law of equivalence of form works.

Question: Can we say that the levels of equivalence reflect my sensitivity to others?

Answer: Yes. My attitude to others or to the Creator is actually the same thing. The main thing is that the direction is from me outward.

We must understand that we are in one state called the “world of Ein Sof (Infinity),” or “Malchut of Ein Sof.” But we are separated from it by five levels of opacity of the senses. Special Masachim (screens) weaken them like filters that are dressed on the perception of the world of Ein Sof, and as a result, we only feel the “external world” although everything actually takes place inside.

Reality is fixed, but it’s depicted to us in the form of this world. The only difference is in the vagueness, in the dullness of the senses.

Question: How can we sharpen our senses?

Answer: It depends on your sensitivity to others in feeling the other and whether I can feel that he is as important as I am. Therefore it says: “Love thy friend as thyself.”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/14/13, “The Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: On one hand, I must correct my attitude towards the friends, no matter how I perceive their relation towards me, even if it seems that they hate me. But on the other hand, I can’t aspire to correction if I do not receive support and guarantee from the friends. How do these things work out?

Answer: It’s necessary to see the reality like this: There is Malchut of the world of Infinity, and all of it it’s me. Malchut is divided into two parts: Now I feel one part as myself and the other as what is outside of me. Yet actually these are external Kelim (desires), near and far, constituting a complex system of various relationships between themselves and even between me and them. This entire system, everything that seems to me as “I” and “them,” is in fact myself. All this together is mine. But at this point I need to see a double picture: my own part and the part that is opposite, contrary to me.

And besides this, there is a Creator who built this state. What for? This is to develop my mind and feelings. After all, they are developed only through the work between us, meaning between me and others.

If the picture of reality were entirely portrayed within me, I would be below the still level. It’s because even the still feels the environment, while I would only be a point of primordial matter. I would be even further from the vegetative level that feels the environment more strongly, consumes, absorbs, and excretes substances, and reproduces, in short, lives, even if it pays for it with its death. This is even more relevant regarding the animate and speaking levels. People don’t just interact, they overcome vast distances, discover new means of communication, and make extraordinary efforts to transcend time and space.

Therefore, everything is measured according to the strength of the connection between a certain creation and its environment. The intensity of our development depends on the amount and capacity of connections between us, in other words, on interdependence, mutual guarantee, and the integration revealed throughout the world.

It’s impossible to reach the Creator if I don’t see everyone as opposite me and opposing me, hated by me and hating me. And in every detail I must rise above the habitual, superficial approach to a higher level. I need to ask for help from the Creator and build support in a group by picturing it to myself as part of me.

In fact the entire world, all people, animals, and plants, all of the still level of nature, the entire universe, is my soul. But I am separated from it by that power of imagination that the Creator inserted into me and thus I can’t discern see the closeness between us. This is too much for me.

But Kabbalists suggest to me to use a group, a small part of the world that I can imagine as my soul. It means that I need to stick to my friends with my heart, to unite with them, and to bring these Kelim (desires) back into me, contrary to the power of my imagination that portrays them as being outside of me.

Understandably, I can’t do this alone, the upper Light is required here. It separated me from these Kelim, so let it now correct my present “vision” and bring it back, within. And then I will feel that I am getting my soul back. I sink into the friends, melt into them, or embrace them and put them inside, it doesn’t matter how to say it. The main thing is to make it happen: unity, oneness, the guarantee. As I build a mutual connection between us, to that degree I will feel what is felt in the soul: the revelation of the Creator.

Regarding the current period, our times, a small group is not enough. We need to connect with the groups scattered throughout the world and then with the entire world. This is the task we have received.

In its essence, the present generation is ready and called upon to correct the entire shared soul. This is clear from the world crisis, from the awakening of the people and the continued correction in all kinds of places.

But the most important thing that we need to understand is that the group is the soul. Even though in reality the soul includes all levels, all the worlds, the Malchut of Infinity, but at least for now we must focus on ourselves, the members of the group. A friend is someone who works together with me and wants to reach unity like me so that no “gaps,” no separation, nothing remains between us. Exactly in this form we must define and mark the boundaries of the group.

In this case, if there are hundreds of thousands of our supporters in the world, the world group can count only a few hundred people, those who understand the idea, work on it without question, and use their natural resistance to create an even stronger connection. After all, everything contains its opposite, which makes it possible to establish itself. Thus, we need to be happy when defects are discovered—after all, the love is revealed above them.

Someone who is capable and ready to work in this way is called a “friend.” And the rest, in the meantime they are “spectators”…. Of course, I don’t underestimate anyone—everyone should examine where he is.
[104788]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/7/13, Writing of Rabash

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Question: In what ways does the integral method differ from Eastern meditations used in the attempts to reach harmony with nature?

Answer: Eastern meditations are based on the annulment of the ego: breathing less, listening less, and eating less. In this way, having renounced everything, having isolated himself, a person lowers his ego and allegedly becomes a part of the world, returning to the state of animal. In other words, he specifically enters into his body.

On the contrary, with our method we go above our body. We want to broaden our sensations and consciousness, mainly thanks to integrality.

No matter how paradoxical it may sound, Eastern psychologists speak about the elevation of a person, however actually, he is lowered to such a level that he can’t even breathe, eat, or do anything. Most importantly, such people detach themselves from the world in order to deal with it individually, somewhere in their corner. Thus, this practice is not suitable for our world since all in all, it’s just relaxing, psychological training.

And the system of integral education speaks about the integrality of nature, the integrality of humanity within it: This is the only way you together with all of humanity can be integrated into the general picture, but not alone. You must create at least a small group, and afterwards you will understand that you need to develop further since it is the only way to overcome all the problems.

You begin to see that in nature there is a plan for our development. And purposely this plan brings us to a huge ego that developed in us during thousands of years so that we will understand that we need to get rid of it, to rise above it—not to destroy it, but to rise above it! That is the secret of our system.
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From a Talk on Integral Education 4/2/13

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