Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“: At that time you will achieve equivalence of form with the Creator—as all His actions are to bestow and to benefit others, so you, all your actions will be only to bestow and to benefit others. This is the complete Dvekut.

Question: What is equivalence of form? How can I be equal in form if I am a desire to receive?

Answer: Suppose you want to resemble me. I play with you, I present myself to you in some form, and then you try to be like me: You do what I do, think like me and talk like me. The next day I present to you an upgraded form and you have to adapt yourself to me even more, both in your speech and in your actions and thoughts. I give you examples and you have to follow them; this is called an equivalence of form.

Here you may ask: “But how can I resemble the Creator if I don’t see Him?” It says: ‘Return to the Lord, your God.’ How can I return to Him, how can I become increasingly more like Him? At least, give me some example…”

Ask. Ask the Creator to give you an example, to show you who He is and what He is, so that you could be like Him. If you don’t ask, it means that you don’t want to be like Him. When all you really need is an example, you will receive it.

Question: I have a cat, I can teach it everything that I know, but will it eventually be like me?

Answer: A cat doesn’t have a point in the heart. You cannot teach it, you can only tame it. You can make something out of it, but you cannot make a human being out of it, since a human being,  Adam, means “Domeh – similar” to the Creator. A cat doesn’t have the starting point for that, it doesn’t have the initial spark; it doesn’t have a point in the heart.

If it weren’t for the point in the heart that entered the desire to receive during the shattering of the vessels, then we too would develop up to the level of the animate. But when we complete this phase, the point of the speaking level erupts in us. This is what is happening today to humanity: It has reached the end of its development on the “animate” level.

Everything began from scratch, from chaos. Then the level of the still nature appeared, then the level of the vegetative, and then the level of the animate. If there weren’t the point of the speaking in the animate level, the human being that belongs to the level of the speaking, then there would be nowhere to develop to, everything would end here.

This is the surprise and problem in our world: People don’t understand that they are facing a new level. They don’t understand because they don’t see it; it isn’t tangible, it is spiritual. All the previous levels were concrete, while the level of the speaking is not.

If I am on the level of still nature, I cannot identify levels that are higher than mine: the vegetative and the animate levels. There is a connection between them that is visible both to the lower and the upper, but I have no idea what the human level is, and to rise to it is a big mystery for me. What can I do, if I have no way to hold on to it, no examples, but only one great unknown?

This is the reason that the whole world doesn’t understand what is going on and cannot accept the message of the future ascent.

Initially, the desire created by the Creator was the part that serves as the point in the heart (•), Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE). This is called “Israel” which means “Yashar-El” (straight to the Creator). Abraham took the people who belong to this part out of ancient Babel, while the other Babylonians without a point in the heart remained.

Then by the shattering, the destruction, the points of Israel fell and were mixed with the matter of the desire. This is the exile of the people of Israel, the mutual incorporation of the attributes resulting in every person having a point in the heart today.

Still, it is very hard for people to see that there is another phase in their development before them, another level that is of a higher quality and is more essential and powerful than the “animate” level. Imagine that you could only see plants on the surface of the earth. How different would this picture be from the next level, with the animals, birds, fish, and people with their civilization.

Now, when we are facing a new level, no one understands it and no one can perceive the need to rise to it.

Question: If the point in the heart determines everything, can I be compared to Pinocchio today?

Answer: Without the point in the heart you would be a “log,” but in this log there is something else, and so when Geppetto begins to cut it with his axe, it cries out; this is “the point in the heart” that raises the voice of man. Everything else in us is indeed only a “log.”

The next level cannot be formed from nothing. So the people who feel a need to develop come to us, to Bnei Baruch, in order to advance by love, with an inclination upward. Others will have to develop by the path of suffering in order to reach this level.

If the point in the heart doesn’t stand out and doesn’t remind people that it exists, only sufferings will push them forward. The point draws people forward while the sufferings push them from behind. It is like a dipole and everything depends on what moves you—whether it is Torah or suffering.

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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Question: How can I examine every action that I make more effectively in order to discover the reason for the awakening from Above that caused it?

Answer: Let me give you an example. Suppose the phone suddenly rings and an unfamiliar voice says, “Wait, I am coming to settle my account with you today,” and hangs up just like in horror movies. You don’t know who has just called and what it’s all about! You begin to look at everyone that you meet suspiciously and fearfully. You check and examine everything that happens.

This is exactly how we should look for the Creator. We need the concern, the anxiety, the fear, the insecurity, and the helplessness that force a person to remain sensitive and alert and to check everything that comes his way.

If the goal is very important to me, but I don’t see that I advance towards it, I worry about what is happening and have to find out what is standing in my way. What is the goal exactly and maybe I am not imagining it correctly. What are the means for attaining it?

Here I discover that my problem is that I simply have to turn my hatred into love. I have to check my state and my intention and to concede where I currently cannot concede. I have to pay attention to what I disrespect and consider as unimportant now and to try to feel it. Then I will regain consciousness and suddenly see the upper world. I don’t see it now only because I don’t want to see it!

It all depends on changing one’s principles according to which a person relates to reality. They determine what a person’s reality will be like.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/3/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: What exactly goes into the 1% of the desires that a person cannot process by himself when he is under the Machsom (barrier)? Is it the stoney heart, the serpent?

Answer: We don’t examine such discernments before the Machsom, before the spiritual barrier. Before it, we don’t see anything and have no understanding or recognition as to where the serpent is and where it isn’t. Believe me, it is in your best and purest thoughts and desires, where you think that you love and devotedly care about others, that the serpent is.

Just like in history, at the time of the exile in Egypt, the serpent is not revealed among common people, neither the Jews nor the Egyptians. Only Moses, Pharaoh, the Creator, and several Egyptian priests, Pharaoh’s counselors, and those who were close to him saw the serpent. It is only among them that the serpent is revealed and becomes a staff, and then the staff becomes a serpent again; it is only when a person attains such high levels.

The serpent doesn’t appear purposelessly, but only as tiny snakes on the animate level. The real serpent, however, is two-legged, and you have not met it yet. It is only on the upper levels that the essence of the snake is revealed. A very strong Light is needed to show us how opposite our desire to receive is from the Light. The Light has to reveal its full infinite depth and the power of its love and bestowal so that in contrast to all that, we will feel how opposite our egoistic nature is from it.

The real two-legged serpent is revealed only after the Machsom. Until then, during the time of preparation, only small snakes bite us. Each time something disturbs you and repels you from connecting with the friends, from unity, from cooperation, from the right intention—this is the revelation of the small siblings of that serpent, and they eat you up like worms.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/13, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: In the process of integral education, do we need to disclose that we do not know exactly what the future society will be like?

Answer: We simply implement integral education and in accordance with this we will see how best to gradually change the world to match our new states.

This is the world that we cannot even foresee so in no way should we get ahead of ourselves.

The fact is that we have always evolved linearly under the pressure of our egoism and that is why we could predict the next images, states, and plans for the future, but here not.

The plan for building an integral society is only in the organization of our self-improvement more than anything. And all the rest originates from it. That is why we have no long-term plan; it depends on a person, the pace of his change.

From the moment we accept this idea, it becomes very simple. That is, I should not force myself to fit in some future framework. I will reach the framework that I want to reach. We are already becoming integral, free. The main thing for us is to be engaged in unity, mutual guarantee, and nothing else. From this follows the rest.
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From KabTV’s “Integral World” 11/28/12

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Question: What does a person’s ability to win the war against his inner enemies depend on?

Answer: First, we may be speaking about people who have already awoken to search for the truth and who feel the need to find the King and return to Him. The point that awakens in a person’s heart is the same point of sorrow over losing the “shield and the sword” that at a certain point were given to us as a gift by the Creator. This means that a person once had a Masach (screen) over the vessels of bestowal and the vessels of receiving on the thickness of the root, first, and second phases, and now this Masach is gone.

Only a spark of this Masach is left in a person, a feeling that once he had this power and that he may have the power, may be able to bestow and that he wants to bestow. This is the “posterior,” Nefesh of Kedusha; I don’t attain spirituality but feel that I can attain it; I have a kind of unconscious yearning for it, strong longings.

A spark is the smallest, most shattered and corrupt part of the “shield and sword” that were once given to a person by the Creator. The spark includes both the Light of Hassadim and the Light of Hochma and Masachim (screens) over them. It is like the Reshimot (spiritual genes) that include all of reality.

So if such a spark exists in a person, he can attain spirituality. He only lacks the means that helps tie his spark to the Light. This is done by the group: The group makes us feel the importance of the goal, and nothing but that is required of a person. The main thing is that a person should constantly feel the need to demand the Light that Reforms in order to identify with the Creator.

We have to get the feeling of the importance of spirituality from the group since we are in a state of concealment. The group adds the necessary conditions to our state that seem to enable us to leap above the concealment as if we feel the Creator’s greatness. It is clearly only imaginary, not real, greatness, but you approach this lie consciously, understanding very well that this is a game and that you have no other choice,

These are the conditions that we were given during the time of preparation and it is about this that it is said, “You have labored and you found!”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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Question: Isn’t our game in the group regarding the greatness of spirituality like a toy sword about which Baal HaSulam writes in Letter #6 that we use instead of the real sword that was given to us at a certain point as gift by the Creator?

Answer: No, it isn’t a toy sword since you are connected to the truth, only the means that you have for attaining the truth is artificial. The group artificially creates an atmosphere around you of the Creator’s importance, as if it really knows that. In fact, they don’t know anything, just like Rabbi Yosi Ben Kisma who was much greater than his students and knew everything much better than they did, but they added their impression to him. Through his students, he discovered the importance of spirituality.

It depends on a person’s attitude, and we need to work on this. There are no concessions here since these are the laws of the world. We see on the screens how there is sometimes an awakening in the groups around the word and the classes are full during the lesson, and then how suddenly there are only several half-asleep students left.

We must wake up! There must be electricity in the air because of the greatness of the goal! If this doesn’t happen, then we will not have enough power to attain it.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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Question: How can it be that a person becomes an active part in the system if it says that the Light does everything?

Answer: The system already exists in perfection and splendor in a state called the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). All the shattering and the concealments, and all the restrictions and the conditions, are relevant only with regard to the created being in order to allow him to gradually attain the whole system.

So we have to start from the state that is most distant from this wholeness. A person actually goes through part of the process unconsciously, in many previous incarnations. We did not begin our correction consciously straight from the “Big Bang“, from the first particle of matter that was created by the spark of the Light billions of years ago.

And it wasn’t yesterday that we climbed down from the trees and turned from apes into human beings. It is a very long process that goes through many changes from one generation to another. Eventually, we have arrived at the life we are living now in which we have to complete this work and clarify things! The most important thing now is the recognition both in our mind and in our feelings.

So everything that happens in this world on the physical, corporeal level has to receive only what is necessary for its existence in order to provide the animal body with what it needs, but all our development has to be on the human level. This is how we should arrange our life and this is how we should focus our attention so as not to deal with the animal level more than it is necessary for its existence.

We should focus all our attention on the speaking level by looking for the human being in it. How can I separate it from the animal to take it out of this confusion and to deal specifically with it?

Here, everything depends on the society, of course. If a person is cut off from the environment, then there is no way that he can advance. It is because he has to create his human image, by cooperating with all of humanity or at least with the group he was brought to. If he perceives the group and the connection with it as absolutely essential, then by this connection he builds his human image.

The main thing is to hasten time. If the Creator has already brought a person to the good fate and told him, “Take it,” then from now on everything depends on you, and all you have to do is to find out exactly what you have to take and how to arrange everything.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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Question: Do you think that as a result of going through the integral education process a person could rise to the next level and remain a traitor, for example?

Answer: He will not remain a traitor! He will acquire new values, a new perception of reality, and it is the same thing, since reality is perceived by the sum of a person’s values. Why do I see one thing but I don’t see another? Why do I pay more attention to one thing and less attention to another? It happens according to the set of values that I have.

In fact, those I see as good are prisoners of their own sweet imaginings. These are in fact the most harmful and the toughest people, and they will be the last to reach correction.

In what way are they better than the thief you mentioned? They also steal, but differently. It is normal to take a few billions from the people for themselves; it means that they are successful. But if you steal are caught and put in prison, it means that you were not successful. Who is better, who is worse? Who causes others more harm and who causes less harm? We arrange everything in its place according to our set of values.

By acquiring a new sense, a new tool for understanding, a person will not behave like he did before. This is in fact what will take him out of his previous state.

A new system for feeling the world is created in him, and he already operates according to it. It is as if he has put on new glasses, has acquired new eyes, new ears, a new collective mind. He takes everyone into account, he cannot think about himself, but rather thinks about “us.” It is a new personality from a qualitative perspective, which up until now has never existed in nature. It is called Adam (human), a unified image.
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From KabTV’s “Integral World” 11/27/12

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A Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah

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