Question: If the Creator created a desire for correction to similarity with Him, what is our role? Where is our choice? What is our action? Is this our work or the work of the Creator?

Answer: All our work is to give the Creator an opportunity to work because we cannot do anything ourselves. Although we are a feeling, conscious material—that is, we have the heart and the mind—but it gives us nothing except the opportunity to realize what we would like to change. However, we can change nothing.

That is why all our attempts to change the world lead to nothing. Don’t try to change anything. You need only to try to draw the upper Light that can change everything.

If the desired changes are in accordance with the upper Light, then It will make these changes and we will get what we want. Otherwise, we will remain with our unfulfilled desires.

That is why all our work is to understand what changes are desirable in us, and then the Light will do it.
[102074]
From the Virtual Lesson 3/3/13

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Question: When do I begin to bring contentment to the Creator consciously?

Answer: At the stage of spiritual maturity (13 years), when I already have vessels of receiving that are ready for correction in which I can receive the Light with the intention of in order to bestow; to the extent that I receive, I actually bring contentment to the Creator.

Until then there is only the preparation, the state of “smallness” in which we are not required to do “mature” things yet and are treated forgivingly. We demand from a child because we want to educate him and not because he must. He doesn’t have to fill all the requirements.

Question: How many years does it take to reach maturity?

Answer: There is no time in spirituality. “13 years” is a level and we really yearn for it, really want to enter the state of Ibur (gestation), to enter the upper system, and to feel it as a womb, a friendly environment, an environment in which my friends think only about how to help me and the teacher guides us towards the goal. I adhere to them and through them, like through the umbilical cord, am “nourished” by the Lights that influence me. This environment is a womb for me, something round, whole, a round sphere that I am in. I am also like a sphere and I don’t limit anything, but constantly restrict myself in order to adhere, nothing more than that.

I value the wholeness of the external environment, the friends and the teacher, and they reflect and project the right attributes on me. Then my “piece of flesh,” my desire, begins to take on the form of Adam, a human being. The environment imprints its form on me, not the environment that I see today, but a different environment that I value more and more.

Thus I develop like an embryo, constantly adhering to the environment, although I am constantly sent different interruptions and complaints regarding the whole group or each of the friends. I accept everything in “faith above reason” and continue working not towards the Creator but rather towards the environment, the friends among whom I already identify the inner essence.

Then, after I feel them, I want to receive their imprint, their impression. I wait for their bestowal because I discover wholeness in them. I want them to “imprint” themselves in me forcefully. I am ready for that and I make efforts so that it will happen. I actually match myself to them and ask that they don’t leave, that they will work with me and imprint themselves in me.

Everything depends on the Ibur, it is the most dangerous stage in our development. If it is successful, then the rest is much easier. Every time I receive a greater defending force, a stronger force of inner overcoming that allows me to overcome all the negative things I see in the group. It is because I look at the desire to bestow of the friends through my ego and I discover terrible things.

But I continue to rise in faith above reason and tell them to continue working on me, to process me, to continue imprinting me with their stamp. I want it! I lower my head before them and I am ready in advance to accept everything that comes from them.

If a person really wants that, he receives a full imprint and then he is ready to be born.

Question: But, at the same time, I still don’t reach an equivalence of form with the environment.

Answer: True, but not more is required at this stage. It is as if I am standing before a puzzle in which one piece is missing—my part. And I shove my piece of clay in the gap so that its shape corresponds to the contours of the other parts.

How do you do that? I ask the friends to push me on all sides, to squeeze me, to knead me, and to push me into the group until I take  the right form. This form is the right “me” together with all the Sefirot and Partzufim, with all the right components.

The Creator is revealed in this puzzle when it is whole. We design the correct desire, build the corrected Malchut, and in it we discover the Creator according to the principle of “come and see,” Bo-re (Creator in Hebrew). There is no other way; we can only do it together, only if we put together at least one piece of the human puzzle. The bigger this piece is, the greater the revelation will be.

Question: How important is it that I enter this puzzle consciously?

Answer: You must agree that the group will imprint itself, its external form, in you. In order to do that you have to agree with the friends on every issue that is related to spirituality, value them as the greatest in our generation, ask them to influence you, and lower your head before them since the Creator lives in them.

Question: But if I see something that is totally opposite…

Answer: This is exactly our work. The egoistic desire remains (in black), but on the outside, it takes on a form, the form of bestowal (in red). This is our spiritual education, which is a “formative” education. Simple matter that is a desire to receive isn’t enough. Everything depends on the form; when two different types of matter make different forms, we receive an education which means that we begin to understand reality.

Question: Why is it so hard for us to be incorporated in the spiritual environment?

Answer: Because here the evil inclination is increasingly revealed to me. Each time new “thorns” are revealed and I have to take on a new form each time, to give in, to annul myself, and to look at all these problems in faith above reason.

Only yesterday everything was fine but today it isn’t anymore, and I have to work on myself again in order to see, in the obstacles, the right forms that belong to the embryo’s body. The next day, the hardships increase and demand that I change my attitude. Thus I constantly rise above the interruptions in faith above reason and correct myself.

[102033]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/6/13,”Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: How do you suggest we prepare for the convention in Germany at the end of the month?

Answer: We should understand that on the first level we are in now we are operating in the framework of time, motion, and place. These are corporeal limitations against which we are powerless for the time being and are under their strong influence.

When we get to the spiritual levels it will be much easier and we will not have to feel the corporeal presence. We will already live in a different reality; the spiritual life will be part of the corporeal life.

In the meantime I don’t see any way of leaping over time and distance. This problem is only on the current level of preparation.

The first spiritual level already brings us together internally, totally freeing us from corporeal limitations. But in order to break through to the spiritual world, we have to work on this current level and to connect as if time and place do not exist.

It is exactly for this reason that we have workshops and conventions, which unite us, connect us physically, and strengthen the ties between us. There is no other choice since this physical feeling still operates on us. It isn’t by chance that this world was created, and it isn’t by chance that we feel this first level in it. Without any contact between the shattered desires, without being able to feel one another, we wouldn’t be able to advance.

It is just like a corporeal couple in which a man and a woman have to be together, not just next to one another, but actually enter one another. We have to learn from these corporeal examples that the new continuity is born of this close connection.

So we have to come to the convention and reach this strong embrace. It doesn’t matter if we actually embrace one another or not, what’s important is that we will actually feel the closeness by sitting next to each other, by studying together, by eating, singing, dancing, and having discussions. There has to be a physical contact of at least two or three days a year or every couple of months. This already leaves an impression that enables us to later feel it over and over again as and to feel one another better.

If we never see each other, we don’t use the means we were given. It is impossible to advance without it. Kabbalists were always together. Baal HaSulam brought equipment for tanning hides to Israel and wanted to open a small plant for tanning in Jerusalem. He thought that his students would work on these machines, make a living, and also study there.

Tanning is a dirty work accompanied by a terrible stench. It is impossible to be near a tanner because of this smell; Baal HaSulam wanted to open this plant so that people would keep away from his group. Usually such plants are far from the living quarters of a city.

He worked as a rabbinical judge in Warsaw, but he decided to deal with this dirty work because he dreamed of a close Kabbalistic group.

This means that it is impossible to succeed without physical contact. I cannot imagine a student who refuses to come to the convention and meet with me although he can. If a person has a will, then he will be ready to walk for a month if he has no money for a plane or train ticket. I remember that many times on the way to Rehovot (where I used to live) my car would get breakdown since it had a problem with the carburetor. Then I would leave the car on the side of the road, hitchhike to a certain point, and then walk the rest of the way. All this is also part of one’s exertion.

But without physical contact, without sitting next to each other at the table during the lesson or in a workshop, singing together or dancing, it is impossible to advance.
[102023]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/5/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How can we come to the European Convention in order to create a common field there?

Answer: We must make every effort to succeed.

We must rise above all our differences and laziness, rejections and other things; just close your eyes, strive to organize the convention, and participate in it.

We have only three weeks left, even less. Let’s make this convention really successful. After all, you only win from this: both in material and spiritual matters—I promise you.

I am looking forward to seeing you and hope that no one is left behind a computer screen, and all together we take part in this convention.
[102008]
From the Virtual Lesson 3/3/13

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Question: What is the difference between spiritual cooperation and a corporeal, egoistic union?

Answer: A union of egoists will produce an egoistic outcome. Suppose a group of people get together to beat up someone. In this case, they certainly would get some benefit for themselves. The same thing is true in business and everything else where the strong win over the weak.

And how is an altruistic connection manifested? How can they connect at all? I want to give, you want to give, he wants to give, but where, and to whom do we give? Can we give to someone on the outside? Then, we would not be understood at all.

When altruists come together, they create an altruistic field between them where they discover a good force called “Nature” or the “Creator.”

They reveal this force between them, between their mutual altruistic movement, and it turns out that their achievement is felt as attainment of eternal life beyond our world, above our world. They exist in a new dimension, in a new field created by them as part of a “spiritual bubble,” and they exist in it.

Out of this “spiritual bubble,” which they created between them through mutual altruistic movement, they do not see our world the way an ordinary person sees it. They do not see matter and images, but the forces that are behind our bodies and the objects of this world. They have a completely different perception of reality.

They feel the matter of our world not only through their five senses, but also through the general property of bestowal that they have achieved, and they see the forces that govern the universe. This is called: They have reached their soul. That is why a union of altruists, in contrast to a union of egoists, takes them to the next level, the next dimension.

Question: Do they set this goal, or is it the result of the action?

Answer: They set an absolutely clear goal for themselves: to reach the level of the property of bestowal, the level of the altruistic upper world. This is the goal from the side of the Creator and from the side of man.
[102005]
From the Virtual Lesson 3/3/13

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Baal HaSulam: Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 8: For example, when two people love each other, you say that they are attached to one another as one body. And when they hate each other, you say that they are as far from one another as the east from the west. But there is no question of nearness or remoteness of location here. Rather, this implies the equivalence of form: when they are equal in form, and each loves what the other loves and hates what the other hates, they love each other and are attached to one another.

And if there is some disparity of form between them and one of them likes something that the other hates, then to the extent that they differ in form, they become distant and hateful of one another. And if, for example, they are opposite in form, and everything that one likes, the other hates, and everything the other hates is liked by the first, they are deemed as remote as the east from the west, meaning from one end to the other.

Question: What kind of love and hate are referred to here?

Answer: It is typical of mutual relations between different people: with a friend, with one’s wife, etc. The more you resemble one another in your desires and thoughts, or the more different you become, to that extent you love or hate one another.

But a person’s intention here is not to reveal the innate physiological feelings and not about the simple natural connection that is based on interests, habits, and understandings. No, we are speaking about two people who work together in order to prepare the “place” for the revelation of the Creator in their connection.

We build this “place” by our general, mutual intentions. Because our desires and thoughts are different and people are different, everyone is set at his “frequency.”

In the past, long waves were used for communication. Then greater accuracy was required, greater intensity, and the ability to penetrate deeper, and so we started using higher frequencies by which it is possible to transmit more information. Before all the fine details were swallowed, but now in the high frequencies it turns out that everyone can be special and we don’t need to be like one another. A creature from another planet wouldn’t notice the differences between us: everyone has arms, legs, eyes, ears, etc. But if we penetrate deeper into a person’s character, into his essence, we discover great differences. Not only is every individual unique, but also he is constantly changing.

So how can we connect to one another?

We connect according to our intentions. I intend to bestow goodness upon you with all my attributes and you intend to bestow goodness upon me with all your attributes, desires, and abilities. Then we are equal, similar, connected. We are not connected in our actual desires but in our intentions that are aimed at mutual bestowal.

I don’t force you to listen to Mozart, although I really enjoy his music, and you don’t force me to listen to Moti Mor, for example, who is your favorite singer. No, I turn off the classical music and dress in you and check what in you matches this frequency, what you like in your analog desire. Ahh, you love Moti Mor. Although I can’t even compare him to Mozart, I still begin to value him, since by that I connect to you and attain the Creator. Thus, suddenly, Moti Mor becomes important to me and I change my desire to your desire. Mozart was a source of pleasure for me on the “animal” level, while Moti Mor becomes an opportunity for me to connect with the other and to build a spiritual vessel.

It is about this that it says, “Make your will His will.” I cannot annul my attraction to Mozart, I have only “restricted” it, “covered” it with a new cover of my attraction to Moti Mor and by that have connected to you. I do the same thing with everyone, equating my desire to the other’s desire. Eventually, I acquire deficiencies from the whole world and connect with everyone.

In fact, I don’t even need to check any further in order to do that, the Light helps me and I connect to the greatness of the other, to his understanding and feeling. This is not an effort but actually easy and wonderful.
[101946]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/13,”Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: On the whole, our mission is to change our intention from in order to receive to in order to bestow. Can we teach people to do that? Can we turn this into a habit by using pedagogical methods?

Answer: This is actually what integral education is about, about changing our intentions. On the whole, education should deal only with intentions and should leave the desires untouched. Educating means to teach the art of bestowal, which is the art of placing an intention of bestowal on top of every desire

Question: But don’t we cultivate values in the form of different desires in children?

Answer: Children learn only by examples. They perceive and copy everything, including the way they walk and gesture. So education is about setting examples. The children reflect you, so you must first pay attention to yourself.

What is more, by your external examples, you convey and “transmit” your intentions to them. There is simply no other method to convey intentions. There is a connection that is erroneous since it is a connection in words. But external actions are for the benefit of the other; even if they are false and insincere, they still summon a response and a desire to repay goodness.

It says, “The hearts are attracted by actions,” which means the desires. We can get children to become used to it: At first I didn’t know, I didn’t think, I didn’t want to, but then I was taught and educated and now I cannot be any other way. Our parents taught us different habits in the same way, and these last for life. The body doesn’t understand and doesn’t accept other methods. “A habit becomes a second nature,” both for children and for grownups.
[101943]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/13,”Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: There are people who we like more than others; there are friends and enemies. Is it possible to maintain good relationships with everybody in the group?

Answer: First of all, you should uncover corrupt relationships among you. Let’s say, I don’t like someone. I can’t stand him without any idea of why I don’t like him. There is something in him that repels me and I can’t do anything about it. My hatred pours over the edges and I literally “spread poison.”

So, people around should “inadvertently” say good things about this person to me. All of a sudden I hear: “You know, I saw him recently and he told me what a great thing he accomplished! It’s wonderful!”

At first, I will be shocked, but later on under the influence of the common opinion, my evaluation criteria will change. It’s inevitable since those people who I admire and respect relate to him in a good way. Gradually, I start valuing this person and being very polite with him without any traces of hatred.

Let’s pay attention to how our relationship develops. Though we won’t become the best of friends immediately, it’s possible that at least my bias towards this person will change to a cautious and distant respect. My prior attitude to him sharply and strongly “manifests” in me. It changes to a positive approach, thus helping me cope with my prior negative feelings. It happens naturally. My attitude to this person transforms against my will.
[101386]
From KabTV’s “Staffing Secrets” 2/8/13

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Question: We often speak about the other; what is the desire to receive of the other?

Answer: All of reality that you can imagine is all about the other; in other words, it is everything that is outside the “self.” We should understand that the “self” is merely a spark and that’s all. Everything else is restricted and unimportant. You may eat, drink, and enjoy life, but only in order to sustain yourself. Everything is determined by one’s intention.

You must see yourself as a spark. Everything else is the animal level and you should provide what it needs, but all your attention should be aimed outwards, towards what is external to the spark. There, outside yourself, is your desire, your spiritual vessel, everything that you can only imagine: all of the still nature, the vegetative, the animal and the speaking levels.

You can manage automatically with the first three levels of your external desires (the still, vegetative, and animate levels) since there is no resistance on their part. But we have trouble with human nature since, in it, you see yourself, your essence, what you are. It’s like the atlas of your inner spiritual anatomy with all its components. Everything is in there, and still, it’s your desire, and so you should work with it.

It doesn’t mean that you have to correct others. Simply by worrying about them, you discover that they belong to you. This is why we disseminate. It’s as if you want to reach the others, to pass on the method of correction to them, but in order to get close to them you have to understand and to feel that it is your own “self.” Then, by really feeling yourself in them, you begin to understand what is written in the books of Kabbalists.
[101866]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/13,”Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: If we draw a picture of a bright future, we seem to realize it, don’t we? As they say, “You want to be happy, be happy.”

Answer: In general, it is true because thoughts work. If we cultivate positive thoughts, then naturally we will create the positive field in the integral circles and everywhere else and will generate the positive forces of nature.

On the other hand, the field will also educate us. That is why it is desirable to be in a good mood all the time with good support, and then a relatively easy life is guaranteed.

We are in the absolute of nature and all sorts of data flow inside of us, which we perceive as the flow of life. That is why, if we perceive the same data flowing through us now, differently, life will seem quite different. It turns out that we ourselves regulate the quality of our life: what it is, good or bad, purposeful or meaningless.

You cannot imagine how much we affect each other! Even if a person does not go outside, he still affects others! It is the same unified field!
[101836]
From KabTV’s “Professional Secrets” 2/10/13

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