Question: Is enjoying dissemination a good or bad thing?

Answer: It is good. The other way around is worse. A person must enjoy his spiritual work even when he has to pressure himself and force himself to participate. This is not masochism; it is simply an understanding that things cannot be any other way because I am working against my egoism.

Question: Does this mean that you can do whatever gives you more pleasure: study if you want to study, disseminate if you want to disseminate?

Answer: First you need to find the part of the common work in the group where you can be useful.

There are people who cannot study at all. They spend their time with the group, they help out, they do things, and gradually they begin to hear and participate in seminars. They absorb the material during the work and not during the study.

And there are people who do not like group work, they prefer to study and disseminate. Let them do it. Eventually, they will also begin to hear that they will not succeed without the group because the Light will keep influencing them and they will understand that they need it.

People should not be forced to do anything. A person must be given an opportunity to be in the group in whichever way he wants as long as he is not causing harm. And anything that he needs to add to the group, he will add later.
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From the Virtual Lesson 2/3/13

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Today’s problems stem from our attitude. There is no doubt that we are building all the systems of human society correctly, but there is also no doubt that we are using them the wrong way. And the reason for this is our wrong attitude towards one another.

Apparently we have created systems that are good and necessary for everyone: healthcare, educational, national security systems, etc., but the outcomes are grim. For example, the more medicines we consume, the better it is for the health care system and for the pharmaceutical industry. Their profits grow and the state receives more from taxes. “We wish you to be ill more often.”

The same thing happens in the food industry: the more we eat, the more profitable it is for the industry. The abundance of unhealthy food brings about illnesses. “So be greedy and a glutton, buy as many food products as possible and by that help the economy“.

The systems are good but they are used against people’s wellbeing. The banks, in fact, have to make the “blood” flow through the system, but instead, they “suck the blood” from the system. The military industries provide jobs and technological and scientific progress, but it’s all implemented to arm different states and eventually they will have to make use of these arms. So the result is endless conflicts and wars.

So it turns out that we have built necessary systems and mechanisms, but we use them in an increasingly more destructive way. There are circles, which, in fact, are interested in a person suffering, being ill, and living a poor and miserable life; all this is determined by the system itself.

Economists scare us: “We have to increase demand and consumption otherwise everything will come to a halt!” But a person doesn’t want to continue this chase, and internally he has despaired from this kind of life and doesn’t see any point in shopping, even if he has the money.

Our desire to receive has been upgraded and has moved on to the next level and the neighbor’s lawn isn’t greener any more. The desire has changed, perhaps not in everyone yet, but the process continues; fashion, temptations, incentives and enticements are all disappearing.

So what’s next? Is the world really coming to an end? No. It’s simply that capitalism is coming to an end; it doesn’t work any more and in the next few years we will see that. It’s about a natural unavoidable process.

Question: How can that be that the system was built correctly but we are using it incorrectly?

Answer: It says, “God has made an honest man and they asked for many accounts”, (Ecclesiastes, 7, 29). Straightforwardness turns into confusion and discord in every direction, but of course, this is also part of nature’s program so that we will reach the recognition of evil by ourselves and will “straighten it out” ourselves.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Question: How is external dissemination connected to internal work?

Answer: Today internal work is impossible without dissemination. In fact, the general pyramid of humanity is divided into two parts: the upper part called “Israel” (Yashar—El – straight to the Creator), and the lower part called “the nations of the world.”

The people who belong to “Israel” have a “point in the heart” (•) and as a result they are in contact with the Creator. Those who belong to the “nations of the world” have only a big void (-) and they feel bad, but don’t know what to do.

So “Israel” has to bring the correction to those called “the nations of the world.” This is why they exist, otherwise they wouldn’t exist at all.

The “created being” is actually the lower part of the desire to receive, while “Israel” are “the Godly part from Above.” On the whole, “Israel” is called “a point,” “a spark,” in the desire and not the desire itself. On the other hand, “the nations of the world” are the main “matter” of creation. It is for them that the world was created; everything exists for them, and the correction should take part in them. It is here that the third Temple will be built. “Israel” is the link, priests and educators. Every person with a “point in the heart” belongs to this group.

On the whole, the whole pyramid is called “Babylon,” since everything in it is confused (same root in Hebrew) and mixed after the shattering.

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Question: I graduated from the online course and currently belong to a virtual group. Is it necessary for me to go to a physical group?

Answer: I understand that a person already got used to studying online. He has friends, instructors, and a network there—everything he is connected to and is constantly in touch with.

However, a physical group brings a person to the new level of relations since it shows him that he is full of egoism in a more clear, powerful, and effective way than any virtual group. Therefore, one has to join a physical group realizing in advance that he is going there to battle not other people, but his own egoism so as to understand it, to see the snake sitting within him and how he has to pull it from there.
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From the Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah, 02/03/2013

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Question: What is a sin in the internal work that corrupts its outcome?

Answer: If a person is already incorporated in the internal work but is now too lazy to constantly support it and to add to it, it’s considered a sin. Since if he doesn’t advance, it means that he is going backward. It’s impossible to stop and stand in the middle.

We sometimes think that we can allow ourselves to take some time off and to rest from this work, but in spirituality there are no days off, the clock is constantly ticking and the counter constantly counts our efforts, so it isn’t like our world where we can stop and be idle, to go to sleep and not do anything until the next day.

This does not exist in spirituality. Perhaps I don’t perform any physical actions, but during this time many Reshimot (spiritual genes) go through me, and if I don’t fulfill them, then it means that I go backward. So I have to make sure that I constantly do something.

My advice is to place yourself, even passively, under the maximal influence of the environment: to listen to tunes and songs, to read our material, to see a lesson one more time or to listen to it, to be among friends. But we have to be very careful in using this means of communication, since along with the gain and the great benefit it can also bring about great loses and harm if we don’t use it correctly.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Why should a person be careful not to humble himself before strangers, but only before the friends along the spiritual path?

Answer: The friends want to act with the intention of in order to bestow and so you can humiliate yourself before them and thus adhere to them, connect to them, and get close to them spiritually. Therefore, you should humble yourself before them.

But if you try to humble yourself before other people, then with regard to what do you humble yourself? Do you do so with regard to their corporeal desires and egoistic goals? They don’t operate towards the direction of the spiritual goal. When you annul yourself before a friend, it helps the two of you since you are serving as an example for him. If he is your friend along the spiritual path, then he will understand you correctly. He will see that you are working on self-annulment, on bestowal, and that you are giving him an example. This means that your action of self-annulment is correct in every sense: both towards the one who performs it and the one who sees it.

But if you behave that way with regard to a stranger, he will think that he is greater if you lower yourself before him, and he will take pride in it and his ego will begin to grow. He may also not understand why you are suddenly ingratiating yourself before him and would think that you want to deceive and to use him. From all these examples, we see that it’s only before a friend along the spiritual path who will understand me that my annulment can be beneficial for both of us.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Today, when life seems tasteless and humanity encounters endless problems, what can the wisdom of Kabbalah tell us about the meaning of life?

Answer: Kabbalah says that we can find the meaning of life only if we are adapted to nature. Then we will receive fulfillment, which is in fact the meaning of life.

So I can receive fulfillment if I am adapted to nature. The adaptation generates a connection, and then whatever is in nature is also found in me. I become the inner system that is connected to nature.

How can we connect to nature, to something that is whole, eternal, and great? It is only possible through the similarity of properties. The similarity of properties refers to being in bestowal and connection, just like the rest of nature is connected. The still, the vegetative, and the animate levels in nature are all connected to one system. But it’s as if man is left outside the system in order to connect to it by himself consciously, willingly, by making his own efforts in order to find the way to fit into it and become an integral part that completes the whole system, just like the last part in a jigsaw puzzle.

This is what we have to reach. To the extent that we approach this state, we will feel better since there is a whole life in the general picture of the puzzle.

So the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about how to receive, to gain, to make the best out of our life in which everyone suffers, and to move on to a better life.

This is fulfilled by connection. The connection depends on a person’s ability: There are people who are brought to high levels of spiritual connection and unity by their deficiency, and there are people are brought to the simple “common” connection by their desire and deficiency, but one way or the other, the future of the world is in connection. So everyone will surely find his own form and intensity of connection according to his internal attributes. The main thing is to complete the picture.

This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us. So, it has nothing to do with religions and beliefs. If a person feels bad and connection seems the right solution for the world, if he feels internally that this it worth it, that it is good, beneficial, and desirable, then he will reach the wisdom of Kabbalah or the system of the integral education.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Question: On one hand, it is written: “There is none else besides Him,” but on the other, a person wonders: “If there is none else besides the Creator, if everything depends on Him, then what can I do?…”

Answer: “There is none else besides Him” means that everything comes from the Creator so that I reveal it for real and stay with Him in adhesion. He leaves me space to do my work, He does not block me from every angle, but rather gives me an opportunity to become like Him.

But in every other regard, it is true that “there is none else besides Him.” I should not think that there is anyone else near me. Seeing the multitude of factors that influence me, I must understand that essentially, all these factors are just He alone.

Sometimes I feel positivity coming from Him, and sometimes negativity; besides, these pluses and minuses can take various forms. But at the end I tell myself: “No, He is always one big positive, and He only influences me through pluses of various kinds. Meanwhile, I sometimes perceive them as pluses and sometimes as minuses. Thus, I must change myself so everything would become a plus to me.” Then, He and I will be equal, and this state will be called adhesion.

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Question: How does the Creator allow me to make mistakes? Doesn’t He want me to advance faster?

Answer: The Creator must open all the treasures of the Light for you. These treasures can be opened only by the depth of the desire that is attained in the dark. You have to feel your desires and to enter them. But if you really enter them and sink into them, there is no way you will be able to come out of them.

So the Creator’s work is to give you the vessels of receiving in their real form, completely separated from the Light. But if you remain totally disconnected, you will never be able to exit the abyss of your desire.

But if you are not immersed in them and are not included in these vessels of receiving that are totally opposite from the Creator, you will not be able to attain Him and will not be able to stand before Him as an independent entity.

Therefore, at every step of the way, you are left to stumble and fall slightly, and to go wrong a little. This “little” bit can be very severe, and at each stage there are very hard trials. But all this depends on how you were supposed to receive them according to the plan of creation.

If we could have received the whole Torah as we should have from Abraham onward (if we can say so in retrospect), then there would be no evil in the world. The whole world would advance in the best, most wonderful way towards correction.

The question is whether we could manage without the destruction of the First and Second Temples and without the four exiles at the end of which we are now. I don’t know how it could happen otherwise…perhaps all the corrections could take place in spiritual discernments.

We shouldn’t think about that now. Our job is to unite all the conditions that we were given—the Creator’s attributes and the created being’s attributes by the system of the Torah, and then we will reach correction.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How can I avoid making mistakes and diversions along the way if I have to totally annul myself?

Answer: To annul myself doesn’t mean to totally erase myself. Self-annulment means that although I have the greatest egoistic desire, I am ready to work without any reward for my desire to receive, without any compensation for my ego.

I have pride, lust, envy, etc.; I would like to be like the King! I come to the palace and offer my devoted help. I can really do any kind of work in the palace, arranging and fixing everything. There isn’t a job that I cannot do!

Instead I am told: “Great! The king has a farm far away from here, on the border of his kingdom. Go there and wash the floor. It will take you twenty years to get there. You will wash the floor and then come back and report to us; that will take you another twenty years. So your whole life will go by, but never mind, you will at least do something for the King. We, his ministers, give you this mission. We will not even tell Him about it, why should we bother Him with such trifles? It is enough for you to know that you are doing this job for Him. At the moment we have no other available job.”

You gladly take this job and dedicate your whole life to washing the floor in some distant place about which the King will never know and his ministers have long forgotten about the mission that you were given.

This example shows us a little of what self-annulment means. It means that you don’t annul your desire to receive; you annul your demands. We cannot annul the thickness, the thickness is not refined; it only ascends or descends according to the Creator’s plan with regard to everyone individually or to everyone together. But it is not refined; it is only revealed or concealed.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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