Question: Which phase precedes fear of the Creator?

Answer: From the very beginning one works only on attaining fear. Fear is called the first commandment. From what moment do we begin to work in fear? It is a long path until we attain fear, until we begin to feel that fear is all we’re lacking.

In other words, fear is the sensation of being dependent on the Creator for everything. But this dependence is acquired not by simply shaking from fear or believing blindly what someone else said. Rather, one feels it after verifying for oneself in everything that one faces on his path and seeing that he is incapable of achieving the goal, the importance of which he was working on for so long that now he cannot escape from it or put it out of his mind. And then one sees that everything depends only on acquiring the right attitude toward the Creator.

One must receive this attitude from Above, in a prepared form; fear must be born from within. And one doesn’t know what this Kli (vessel) is like. We don’t know what fear is. We may mistake it for the fear that pertains to this world. But in reality, fear is whether or not I will be able to sense His love?

This sensation cannot be felt in our world. We can’t even imagine how it would be possible. That’s how far it is from us.
[47290]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/2011, The Zohar

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati (I Heard) No.5, “Lishma Is an Awakening From Above, And Why Do We Need an Awakening From Below”: When one has already accustomed oneself to work in order to bestow, and not examine oneself—if he is feeling a good taste in the work—but believes that he is working to bring contentment to his Maker through his work, one should believe that the Creator accepts the labor of the lower ones regardless of how and how much is the form of their work….

Question: How can one bring contentment to the Creator? What does this mean?

Answer: Our reality has not changed, is not changing, and will not change; it remains the same. Right now it looks to us as darkness and concealment, yet we nevertheless need to imagine ourselves in adhesion with the Creator.

The only one thing that hinders me from this is that I don’t relate to Him in the way that He relates to me. This is the gap which plunges me into the darkness and causes me to not feel that I am with the Creator and filled with the Light. Instead, I perceive my reality in the form of our world.

That is why I constantly need, like a baby, to imagine for myself that I want to be in attainment, meaning in bestowal to the Creator. Am I really thinking about this? If I take my thoughts to Him through the group, through the friends, so that all of the 613 desires of my heart are corrected towards bestowal, if I am ready to implement all of these 613 commandments, then I am preparing the vessel for the attainment of the Creator.

This is what the whole of the Kabbalistic method is about. We need the efforts; we have nothing else to do.
[47193]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/5/2011, Shamati #5

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Question: If the Light and the Creator don’t change, what is the “awakening from Above” (Itaruta de Leila)? What does it mean to be awakened from Above?

Answer: The “awakening from Above” is always there. If you’re able to sit and study at this moment, even for a minute, that’s a result of the “awakening from Above.” It gives you strength, patience, and desire. You study instead of sleeping or chasing after the material pleasures of this world. Instead of all that, you’re listening to the lesson and aspiring to something you don’t even know.

Where does this “foolish” and “unrealistic” desire come from? Would a reasonable, sensible person do this? It’s all thanks to the awakening from Above, whereby the Light shines on you from Above and compels you to aspire to bestowal.

The Light is constant and doesn’t change, but you do. Each time you change, and your sensitivity increases, which is why you’re sensing greater and greater influence. You increase the sensitivity of your perception along the degrees of zero, one, two, three, and four until you reach the complete inner degree (HaVaYaH). You do this with your own effort, thanks to your “awakening from below” (Itaruta de Letata).

However, who gave you the initial awakening and inspired you to exert the effort? It was the awakening from Above! Therefore, it is written: “I Am the First, and I Am the Last.”
[47203]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/5/2011, Shamati #5

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Question: Egoism shrewdly and inventively depicts various pictures before me. How can I discriminate the lie in them, which appears like love for others? After all, all kinds of religions and methods also talk about love.

Answer: In our world “love for the neighbor” is a simple, primitive game of small egoists. Can you really find real, exalted love for the neighbor anywhere, which is really practiced on an ongoing basis?

True, people create separate settlements in order to live in love with one another: There is a village like that in Italy, one in India, and an entire city in Asia. But if you look a bit closer, you will see that they are still the same egoists who just decided to introduce more comfortable social customs. This is more comfortable and pleasant for them, and therefore, they have united in order to make their lives nicer.

Once upon a time kibbutzes flourished in Israel—agricultural settlements with collective property similar to a collective farm. People decided that it was worthwhile for them to live together because this brought them more benefit. “Let’s give up some of our egoism and then we will feel good.” Everything’s clear about this, but is this really altruism?

Humanity supposes that conceding to the neighbor makes a person an altruist. However, people who are slightly more informed about human nature or who study the science of Kabbalah know that any concession has to come with a profit. No matter what a person is giving up, you can find what he is gaining by that. Even if the profit is concealed, it is definitely present.

For example, I am willing to live in a kibbutz because this removes my worries about how to arrange my life. Is that not a profit? I have no worries. I simply do what I am told. But development follows its course and with time kibbutzes became outdated. As a whole, these kinds of communities have no future.

We already see that all forms of interconnection between people have to change due to the egoism that grows in them. Changes continue to take place, and this inner dynamic has to be realized in some way as there will be an explosion otherwise.

This happened over the course of history to various religions, faiths, and methods. Today they are undergoing a worldwide outburst because man has set out on a search once again. He is conducting the final revision: Can these methods offer anything real?

After this analysis these practices will fall for the last time. After all, today we are checking them in relation to the integral mechanism that nature places before us. We have never had this criterion yet. People are once again turning over the pages of all sorts of practices, confessions, and mystical teachings, trying to understand: Can they help us in the new, integral world?

This process will take a short time and will quickly come to an end with all the expectations crashing down. Everyone will see that it is pointless to wait for help from them. Any subject that is checked will persist for a few years at most after which it will reveal its inadequacy.

After all, if you don’t change man’s nature so he becomes just as integral inside of him as nature itself, then no recipes will help him. The only method that makes man global, integral, and united with others is the method of attracting the Light that reforms, the science of Kabbalah. Every person just needs to be given the opportunity to realize his evil. Then all the means and their combinations will turn out powerless, and this entire business of “spiritual” tricks will end up non-existent.

Man will not be able to calm himself down because the world has changed and the problem is no longer how to calm down, but a “conflict of interests.” No one will be able to survive in the integral system without becoming fit for it.
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/7/11, Matan Torah

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Question: Lately it’s felt that the world Kli is working in a single desire. At one time Rabash advised you to make an attack from this state. What exactly are we attacking?

Answer: Ourselves, our heart, our laziness, our pride, our past habits. I have to ascend above all of these calculations.

The most important thing is to dissolve among the friends, to intentionally push yourself into the group. I want to be there all the time. I want to lose my personal mind and feeling and to acquire the mind and feeling of all the friends. It’s as if I lose myself in them by my own desire.

This means acquiring the vessel of the mutual guarantee.
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/11, Matan Torah

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We are in a reality where we have developed over thousands of years. At first we were savages, not knowing what for, how, and why—real animals. Then we started having human relations with one another, formed a society, and started developing technology.

And thus, gradually, through all of these events, we are discovering a process that was goal-oriented from the onset. New facets of desire were always revealed in humanity, continuously pushing us to a new turn in our development in order to fulfill ourselves. However, once we achieved a specific state, a specific level of development, we started experiencing desires that could not be realized in our world.

Man is suddenly contemplating things that you cannot find here. Food, sex, family, money, honor, and knowledge, in different variations and combinations—this is the entire selection. It would seem: What else can there be? And yet, one sunny day, man starts having new questions: about his root and about the reason for existence. Suddenly he notices that every object has a reason, a process, and a result—a beginning, development, and end. Apparently, I am not an exception?

This question no longer belongs to the animate level, but to the human in us. Until it appeared, creatures having the form of humans did not ask about life, or if they did ask about it, then they were satisfied by different methods of self-appeasement. But we are talking about a person wishing to know, “What am I for? Why am I here? Where did I come from and where am I going?” So how can he receive answers to his questions?

First he has to uncover the actual question because it is not simple. Any person can ask it, but the entire matter here is the depth of the question, its direction. After all, a question is a vessel, a Kli.

In the end a person becomes completely confused. Besides, by our nature we aspire to self-appeasement, which we accomplish by means of all sorts of actions, customs, and habits. I do something and I feel good. So let’s establish customs that will help us receive psychological compensation and fulfillment. That is how we lull ourselves, not wishing to reveal our question in its entire depth and to use it to develop, to get down to the truth. We don’t care about the truth, but about comfort.

Stated differently, I am not happy about the emergence of this new vessel or new desire in me, which sends me off to search for something, forces me to make an analysis, and evokes inner suffering. Ideally I should be enjoying it because that’s how I develop, and development is more important than transient sensations. However, what do I need this for if I’m able to fulfill myself and dampen my ardor without it just as well? What I have is enough for me.

And soon after, I am overcome by fatigue and vexed by life’s difficulties. Old age is creeping on and a person agrees to the small instead of the great.

Thus, our problem, and a great obstacle for us lies in rising from the regular level of development to the spiritual level —the human level.
From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/11, Matan Torah

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Question: Is the revelation of evil enough for advancement?

Answer: The revelation of evil is a powerful method of advancement since it is a discovery of an uncorrected desire. If you correct it, you will advance. This is why it is impossible to do it without the revelation of evil.

For example, you get into a car and try to reach your destination with it. Suddenly you see that the key does not fit the ignition lock. You start fixing the key. You fix the key, put it in the ignition, but it doesn’t turn. You need to fix the lock.

You fix the lock, you turn the key—the car does not start. You discover that the wires are not connected to the ignition. You need to connect the wires. The wires are fixed. Why will it not start? The battery is missing.

And you go step by step until you fix the entire car. But every time you discover whatever is missing until you complete the renovations and high polish the last drop of paint. Then you sit and drive. The car will not move until then.

Question: What does it mean to correct every component?

Answer: To correct means that you understand why you need the component, how it connects to other parts, and what its ruined and corrected forms are. Every component is a part of your heart, your soul. “Ignition” and “key,” “wires” and “battery,” every last component, all these things are your inner desires, the “flesh” of your soul.
[47033]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Surveys show that 80 percent of humanity believes in the higher power that controls everything. Why don’t we explain to people what kind of power it is and what it wants? It is much more interesting than the calls for love.

Answer: We have nothing to explain. The upper force is Nature, the law, the force as unyielding as the force of gravity. It is Absolute who is Good, does Good, and does not change.

If this force is invariable, it is as if nonexistent. The absence of change seems to cancel it. It is like living under the sun, forever stuck at the zenith. There is no point of taking it into account if it is and will be there always. It just is, and that is all.

In our life, we make calculations based on what has to change, on advancements we depend on. It is another matter if we talk about something permanent and indestructible on which we depend constantly to such an extent that it cannot be called dependence.

This is what the “Creator” is. And that is why it is so difficult to explain this to people. In reality, we pray not to Him but to ourselves. We seek how to change, and He is always unchangeable. Of course, I will change if I desire it, and to do this, I do not need to take Him into account. He is Good and does Good, and next to Him, I am like a spoiled child whose parents give him absolute love, while he does whatever pleases him and gets out of control, knowing that nothing bad will happen to him.

Thus, our problem is how to explain to people that the Creator is like a solid wall and simply exists. You can jump in front of it, wave your arms; this is your business, and the wall still towers over you.

A person can barely imagine that: “Then, whom am I dealing with? It means that there is nobody to ask.” How can we explain to those who believe in the higher power that it does not make sense to pray to the “changeable” Creator who would do better today than yesterday. Does it mean that yesterday He caused me harm?

In reality, we deal with the One who is Good and does Good to the wicked and to the righteous. But for a person, this means that regardless of whether he is good or bad, the result will be the same.

An ordinary person is subject to changes constantly. All the time, he compares himself with the world, trying to calculate the results of internal and external changes. He does not understand what the universal, general, great, immutable Force is. This eludes our sense organs because they are “tuned” to changes rather than to the static condition. I just do not see what does not change, does not disappear from my view.

That is why we cannot explain to people what the “Creator” is. Sometimes, I say that the “Creator” is Nature, that He is unchangeable, and there is no one to pray to, that a prayer is self-judgment. In response, they are ready to tear me to pieces. This is the problem: We judge ourselves, whereas others ask the Creator to change: “I threw a little bit in Your piggy bank, now, save me from troubles.”

Talking of the Creator as of the unyielding law of nature, we deny a person the possibility to turn to Him. A person does not see that he has to change. A new strong “dose” of development is necessary so that a person begins to behave differently.

Whatever we talk about, including the crisis, we essentially explain to people the path of suffering: “Alternatively, it will be troubles, and it is not worth it. Let’s change.” It is not a lie, but not the truth either.

We should tell something else to a person who comes to the wisdom of Kabbalah desiring to reach the goal of creation: “You have to be above this. No matter whether it is good or bad, you have to rise by faith above reason. You should not make your actions conditional on suffering or pleasure. This is not bestowal. Faith above reason means that you rise above the reward. Or do you work to escape evil and achieve good in the future? Are you expecting compensation? Do you want to reach the purpose of creation for yourself instead of giving pleasure to the Creator?”

On the other hand, whom are we supposed to please if the Creator is the law? This is a delicate moment in our explanations.
[46848]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/2011, “Mesiah’s Horn”

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Question: How is it possible to remember the Creator all day long? How is it possible to bring Him into every moment?

Answer: We are in Malchut of the world of Infinity, which is entirely filled with Light. However, instead of this eternal, perfect state, we see and feel our own qualities which depict the material world to us. Therefore, if we want to aim ourselves at the goal, at feeling the world of Infinity, then we need mutual guarantee from our environment. The friends have to give us the forces, the desire, the persistence, the diligence, and the realization of the goal’s importance.

After all, I have just one goal—to obtain the right desire, and nothing else. Let me constantly feel that I’m not concerned enough about doing good for the Creator the way He does for me.

You might object, “But I don’t know what He gives me. Judging by my life, sometimes I could say that it would be better if He did not give me anything.” That’s true. Obviously, every person rejects things in accordance with his own defects. Therefore, my attitude to the Creator can be defined this way: I want to reach a state where I will desire to bestow to Him.

And the actual result will come thanks to the Light’s influence, thanks to the efforts that we make time after time. The Light pours upon us again and again, and suddenly these illuminations create a desire in a person.

We don’t know what Lishma, an awakening from Above, is. But when it comes, a person is able to say, “Now I know, now I understand.” One has to make efforts, like a little child, and from these efforts the sensation will emerge. But not before that.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/7/11, Shamati

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