Question: Throughout our lives we often suffer. How can we work with it? Why do we feel suffering? What should we do with it?

Answer: It’s impossible to advance without suffering. Until we reach our final goal, we keep advancing by the force of suffering.

Suffering is when I feel that something is lacking. Actual suffering isn’t necessary; I can derive pleasure from suffering. If I know that a special meal is awaiting me and I’m getting closer to it, if I know that I’m about to meet someone I love, a friend, and something good is about to happen, then it isn’t suffering any more. The feeling of hunger and emptiness stirs in me the anticipation of future enjoyment and fulfillment.

Therefore, our entire problem is not in sensing a lack at the present moment, but whether that lack has fulfillment, an answer in the future. If it does, then for me it’s as sweet as a feeling of hunger before a good meal. I can feel that satisfaction is coming. Suppose, you have a date with a loved one tonight, and you look forward to the meeting. Is there a chance that you will be miserable?!

In other words, the problem is not in my condition, but rather in if there is a pleasure that beckons me ahead or not. The problem is that people can’t see a proper, good future ahead of them and, therefore, feel suffering. If we felt that all the problems we have today would be successfully resolved tomorrow, we wouldn’t feel the hardships as suffering. Rather, it will be like an overture, a necessary preparation that precedes fulfillment.

Hence, our entire problem is in revealing the future in our current state, the one where everything will be fine. But it has to “shine” to us like a pleasant date.

This will be the answer to all our afflictions. We will agree to pass through all the unpleasant states—ascents and descents, all sorts of confusions in feelings and in mind—as necessary for our spiritual correction.

If, however, through support from our environment, we know that a bright future lies ahead, then any of our current states would not appear as suffering. We would perceive them as a necessary sensation, a wholesome hunger before cherished satisfaction from the meal.
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From the 1st lesson of the Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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Question: Mentally, everyone believes that he is ready and willing to unite with all, but when the time comes to actualize this desire, we fail.

Answer: You fail in only one thing: Each of you separately is ready for it, but together, you are not. Egyptian exile is unlike all others. Why was it through Joseph that they entered Egypt? It was Joseph (from the Hebrew word “Osef,” “gathers”) because he is the sum of all forces and foundations.

Evil is impossible to expose, even if everyone is willing. In order to achieve this, one condition has to be met: There has to be willingness to unite. Joseph’s brothers were righteous, and each of them wanted to serve the Creator, but they were unwilling to unite. They didn’t agree to link together in Joseph who is the ground for it.

But when they were forced to enter Egypt with Joseph’s help, they started to see how much they hated and resented the idea of oneness. And the exile itself was the revelation of hatred toward unification. Only when this hate reaches its full force and one starts feeling its reign over himself (meaning that on one hand, he is subordinate to Pharaoh, but on the other, deeply suffers from it and is unable to accomplish anything), the breakthrough occurs.

But all of this takes place thanks to the effort to unite, having risen above one’s own desire to do so. Thereby, they overcome exile. As to us, we are standing at the Egyptian border, hanging about. The aspiration to be one manifests in mutual inner concern, when everyone is thinking and worrying about our internal unification.

As a result, we feel that there is something between us that connects us, and we all will become as one heart. At this point, we are a spiritual heart, a spiritual desire, where we are connected with the Creator and need the Light that will link us so that from our mutual desire we will be performing acts of bestowal to the Creator.
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From the Talk on Spiritual Work 12/17/2010

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Question: Sometimes during the lesson we ask questions that demonstrate our weakness that we are not advancing and succeeding as expected. I see that you do not reject such questions, but rather keep trying to answer them over and over again.

Answer: We study that the more a person advances, the more he feels worthless, powerless, and small. Do not feel ashamed because we do not measure ourselves against roosters in the coop but against the Creator.

If I am in a chicken coop, then I definitely feel like a hero. But if the Creator reveals Himself to me, it is only natural to submit myself. There is no shame in it. Neither do I judge such things and ignore a person if he tells me that he is weak. I am well familiar with such states. Weakness isn’t a problem at this point. On the contrary, weakness is the attainment of self in its authentic form on the background of the Upper Light.

But a question arises: Is any desire to reach the goal still left in a person at the moment when he has lost faith in his strength, and does he still passionately wish to achieve it? That’s when he cries out for help correctly.

Obviously, everyone has to experience it individually as well as to explain to all our friends around the world that the attainment of personal lowliness and the awareness of the value of the goal, both of these conditions are mandatory in order to break through the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality).
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From the Talk on Spiritual Work 12/17/2010

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Question: What is the connection between depression and our nature?

Answer: Depression is a sensation of emptiness in desire. There are desires but no fulfillment. It is the most vivid manifestation of our nature. After all, the Creator created desire, and this desire yearns to be fulfilled. This is our essence.

The collective desire where we all reside or every individual, little desire it is comprised of requires fulfillment. When desire lacks inner fulfillment, the question is where the fulfillment is. If it is somewhere near and the desire feels that it is close but not inside, then depression occurs.

If this fulfillment never existed in the first place, there would be no depression. Who knows what kind of emptiness I feel? How does some African peasant know that he lacks a laptop or a washing machine? But if future fulfillment, which could be but isn’t in you yet, appears in your vision, your sensation, it gives rise to depression.

Thus, depression characterizes not a primitive person, but rather someone advanced. And the farther we move forth, the more depression there will be since desires mature and so does the awareness of the lack of their fulfillment.

It is evident how for the last forty years depression has been getting more wide-spread in humanity. Today it is one of the top problems. Moreover, it has also become an illness. It will keep growing, and there will be no way to stop it.

In the nearest future, they will have to legalize and sell drugs to anyone who wants them. Basically, we will be glad to take anything to not feel this depression. But we won’t be able to overcome it anyway. It will come to the point where a person will see the “fix” before him or her but won’t be able to use the drug. Why? Because they will feel that it is not the answer to their question, not the “fix” to their internal void.

Therefore, the battle with depression is the major battle of man with his emptiness that is precisely what pushes him forth. Hence, by the number of those who are depressed, we can judge how close humanity is to becoming aware of its evil.

Nothing will help a person except a decisive, firm, and dynamic engagement in the correct society. Only there will he be able to suppress his or her depression, and very intensively at that: by switching themselves off, by turning off their feelings, and thrusting themselves into the environment as if flinging themselves into the water. There is no other medicine but the influence of the environment. And as a result, fulfillment will come and immediately eliminate one’s depression.
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From the 2nd lesson at the Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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Question: You have said on numerous occasions that the ideas of Kabbalah should be brought into psychology and to scientific minds. I teach psychology in a university and I noticed that like all other scientists, even psychologists have very narrow opinions. So how can we approach psychologists? How can we bring elements of Kabbalah into psychology?

Answer: In principle, I myself came from the scientific world. But I left it. Yet, I respect people who nevertheless try to find something out about nature, themselves, and the surroundings. Of course, they are driven by egoistic qualities, but that’s how man is and you cannot do anything about it.

Psychologists, philosophers, and other people who study what seems like man’s inner world and the theory of knowledge, as well as scientists in the field of various closed systems—all of their research is based on our nature and the previous developments in all of science. Science develops in our five senses and is built out of these sensations.

Naturally, this entire science is absolutely egoistic because it comes from the sensation inside egoism, our main quality. And naturally, psychologists, psychiatrists, and philosophers are unable to understand Kabbalah because it works with opposite qualities. These people are no closer to attaining Kabbalah than all others.

That’s because in order to attain Kabbalah, one must have a point in the heart. If it is present, if a person has a need to know “Why do I exist?” that is not coming from smart philosophic reckoning, but from his personal, inner necessity, then he reaches the sensation and understanding of what Kabbalah talks about. This does not happen immediately, but over the course of a great amount of serious study.

At first he does not understand what it is talking about at all. He sits at the lessons for many months, listening and nodding his head, but he still does not have the inner sensations that emerge under the influence of the Light, which are adequate to the realm that the science of Kabbalah talks about. However, gradually this happens. We have to wait.

That is how children grow. Over the course of 20 years a person is brought up and grows, and only later does he become suitable for living in our world. Even though he was born in this world and his entire environment is also in this world, it still takes him 20 years to become more or less independent. And even then he is next to his mom all the time…. Still, suppose this is so. However, in our case we are talking about the spiritual world, a completely unexplored territory. How can I prepare for it if I am not in it? How can I adapt to it if I don’t feel it? I am told about this in these books and I don’t understand what they are talking about. So everything comes down only to the influence of the Surrounding Light.

We simply have to take these people and place them under the influence of the Surrounding Light if they agree to it. Meaning, we have to place them in the right environment, evoke the Surrounding Light through the study, and over the course of several months or years, we will see the result. This is the only thing we can do. If a person agrees to it, this will happen to him, and if he doesn’t agree to it, it won’t happen.

How much knowledge he has acquired in this world does not have any relation to Kabbalah because the knowledge he has acquired is about our world, this realm, “inside the aquarium.” So how will this help him find out what is outside? After all, everything is structured in a completely different way over there.

Even if he is a great scientist in our world, even if he is Einstein himself, he will suddenly find himself completely imperceptive to what is being said here. It is written that it is not the smart person who will master the spiritual world. That is never a criterion! It can only be done by a person with a point in the heart, who properly places himself under the external influence of the group and the inner influence of the Light. From inside the point in the heart is influenced by the Light, and from outside it is influenced by the group.

Under the influence of these two sides, this point swells up and a person begins to feel the first ten Sefirot inside of it as he rises from one degree to the next. And suddenly—Kabang! This sensation becomes revealed inside of him. Then he begins to understand what he heard about, what he read, and what others talked about. “Oh, now I get it!”
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From the 1st lesson at the Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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Question: How can we balance our feelings with our mind?

Answer: But why do that? Being balanced is not a good thing. Even though this is our purpose, to reach balance and harmony, nevertheless as long as we are on the path, we don’t need this to stop us.

We learn that the Creator created the will to receive which is the creation, matter, and the only thing that exists. This desire develops with the help of the Light that created it. Stated differently, there exists a special force called “Light,” “the force of bestowal,” or “the root” that created the will to receive, the force of reception.

When the will to receive begins developing with the help of the Light, it goes through four phases, each of which gives rise to the following stage and fills it, and then that phase continues its development. When this desire reaches the fourth phase of development, it begins asking questions: Who am I? What am I living for? Where did I come from?

In essence these questions are asking about “the root.” And because the desire asks about this, a mind begins developing within it. The Light influences our will to receive in such a way that the need for fulfillment makes the desire begin searching for a way to attain what it desires.

We see this based on how we are structured. What do we include inside of us? Positive particles and negative ones: positrons and electrons, atoms that make us up and unite into molecules. These, in turn, connect together according to their valency. So after all is said and done, there are two forces: the force of reception and the force of bestowal.

But when they begin to unite, they form cells of thought. That is why every atom and every molecule begins to feel the need to perceive itself. And when they try to unite together, they are looking for a way to complete themselves according to the number of free electrons. Then it turns out that by virtue of these processes, a mind forms.

After that the particles begin to unite in a way that seems mechanical. Our brain is also mechanical and contains nothing from Above. But it looks for the most rational, short, and best way to reach what it desires. This is called the birth of the mind inside the desire. A great desire gives birth to a great mind according to the fact that it has to attain great things, while a small desire produces a small mind.

This is similar to a child’s development. A small child has small desires and a small mind, but the more we develop his desires in order for him to know how to take something apart and put it back together, the more his mind develops. The same happens on the still, vegetative, and animate levels.

However, the will to bestow has a completely different brain. There we come out of ourselves to the common memory that is outside of us. I begin to acquire an external feeling, the feeling of bestowal, with the help of my desire to attain “the root” and by beginning to connect to the desire that is outside of me.

External desires are located between people and they are the common desire that each of them acquires. In the same way a person also acquires the external mind outside of each one of us. In that case, our desires and our mind are unlimited. Then, I do not limit the mind by the boundaries of my personality, but on the contrary, I come out into a dimension where there are no limitations. This state is called the world of Infinity.
From the lecture in “Kabbalah L’Am” Hall on 1/25/11

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Question: What opportunities does an unlimited mind open up for us?

Answer: I begin to perceive creation to the depth of my matter. If I look at matter without my brain’s participation, then I only see how it appears externally. But with the help of the mind I can penetrate inside matter and see increasingly deeper roots of it until I attain the plan of creation.

I go through matter until the very root that gave rise to it, until the Creator, until the plan of creation. I attain: Why was it born and what is its function from the beginning of creation until the present moment? And when I come back, I attain the end of creation because the beginning and end are in one place.

It turns out that the process I go through is the acquisition of a mind. Therefore, when acquiring 125 spiritual levels, I acquire my mind. That is why this acquisition is 620 times greater than acquiring a mind inside the will to receive.
From the lecture in “Kabbalah L’Am” Hall on 1/25/11

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Question: Can you please explain what the right way to work with the Light is?

Answer: The right way to work with the Light is very simple. The difference between Kabbalah and religion (and all other methods) is that religion asks the Creator for Him to change and to become better, while Kabbalah says, “The Creator is absolute and only you can change.”

The Creator is Light, meaning the only force in the universe inside of which we exist. This force is unchanging and absolute. Therefore, the only way to work with the Creator is very simple: The more similar you are to this force, the more it influences you, and the less similar you are to it, the less it influences you.

This works by a very simple formula. If you studied physics in school then you have to know it: The influence of any source upon an object that is placed in the field of its influence is inversely proportional to the distance between them squared. When I come twice as close to the object that influences me, then its impact on me is four times greater. That is how things work in the physical world and it is the same in the spiritual world.

Therefore, if you come at least a little bit closer, you will see that the Light’s influence on you is squared. That is how we work with the upper Light.
From the 3rd lesson of the Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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Question: We undergo thousands of various states. How important is it to keep track of or record them in order to pass through each stage consciously?

Answer: It’s a very good question. In the very beginning of my path I asked my teacher this question as well: Should I keep track of all my states? “Today, I feel this way and view others that way.” Will it help if I write down each state I am in: my view of myself and the others, how well I understand, my awareness of myself in this world and of the world itself. Should I establish, let’s say, ten facets and try to review them once a day or possibly once every few days (depending on how my states change)?

My teacher said that it’s worth doing so at the beginning stage. It helps a person. For instance, I look back and see that I had already gone through something similar, and nothing terrible happened: I came out of it. Or I use records for future reference.

How much does this help in advancement per se? It is impossible to relive all the details of the past no matter what. After all, you are now living the next state and cannot feel as being in the past. You don’t comprehend it, as it were; it is a completely different person.

We descend from Above downward along the 125 spiritual degrees, and we get inhabited with hundreds of thousands of Reshimot (informational records). Each Reshimo is a spiritual state that contains all of the worlds, universes, and all there is as a whole.

So, when this Reshimo is working in me, I can feel and think only as it dictates. A Reshimo is gone, and I, like after pushing the button “delete,” don’t know or understand anything. A new Reshimo appears, and I act according to it.

We are a system that constantly experiences a Reshimo, an informational gene which unfolds in it. We are living through this gene. A sequence of such genes gives us a sensation of life, flow, and motion.

Therefore, being in some state today and reading about the states you were in a week or two weeks ago, may not aid your understanding of them at all since you are not living them right now. Try and see for yourself. But it is still useful, at least so that you may understand that you don’t even understand yourself.
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From the 2nd lesson at the Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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Question: Why is the Internet communication network Facebook so incredibly popular?

Answer: Our ego is developing not only quantitatively but qualitatively as well. If previously a person was satisfied with having five or ten friends with similar interests in his or her circle so that they could go fishing together, visit bars, play cards, walk dogs, and so on, today it doesn’t satisfy them anymore. A person wants to meet others not by way of dogs or fish, that is, not based on corporeal interests and geographical proximity; rather, he seeks internal similarity, a place where he can express himself or herself the most.

A person searches for a way to communicate where he could even lie. But, essentially, by doing so, one express his “self” even more. After all, when we lie, we expose our inner truth! This lie demonstrates what we want to be but can’t.

It is very much in sync with the principle Facebook is founded on: A person displays only what he or she wishes to show, their "best pictures." But it speaks about one’s inner world. As a matter of fact, due to their egoistic nature, people may be greedy, paranoid, cowardly, or primitive, but they will present themselves as they view their ideal. In other words, a person shows what in his or her eyes is merited as a deeper, internal, attractive form.

So it follows that on one hand, I know what I am (although I may not realize it myself), but to others, I present myself in a more attractive disguise. And sometimes, it’s the other way around: I wish to look worse than I am, playing a tough guy and portraying myself as a belligerent Don Quixote.

Still, it doesn’t matter whether this image is better or worse than the real one because this lie eventually shows a person what their essence is, and he or she comes to know their evil. A person faces a question: What am I compared to the image I present myself as on the Internet, anyway? After all, everybody views me as I depict myself on the Internet, but I myself start to realize that I am far from what I have painted for others.

This brings people to the awareness of their evil, to the need to change, and to become closer to the image they wish others to see. Since if I am not in physical contact with you and you don’t see me, I can pretend to be whatever I want to for you: a new me, my inner ideal, that doesn’t have anything to do with my corporeality. And this image is a more authentic one!

Therefore, our development toward virtual communication will lead us in the direction of spiritual communication, spiritual changes. This is why I am so happy to hear about the development and growing popularity of Facebook and other communication networks.

I am certain that within this social network there are psychologists and sociologists who are doing serious research. After all, it is a global phenomenon now which expands over the entire humanity.
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From a TV program “Ask the Kabbalist” 1/20/2011

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