Question: Is there a difference in the efforts that I’m required to apply when I fulfill the conditions of the mutual guarantee for the first time and when it happens for the second time?

Answer: The difference is in a sensation of a lack, in that I now intend to achieve the second degree on the basis of the first. The first degree stays in me as a Reshimo (internal record, imprint), a state that I have experienced but could not preserve because of an additional desire to receive. I must now overcome this additional desire in order to attain the next degree. The previous degree helps me to reach the next one.

These are not degrees of a descent, but those of an ascent. In other words, even if I fall, I understand why I have fallen and know what I have to do. Based on my own experience I already know how I managed to reach the state of a mutual guarantee on the first degree, and now I am going to do the same on the following degree.

This is called “a person’s soul teaches him,” meaning that I have gained experience and I know what to do. It is clear to me now that my descents are not states where I simply lose myself. I realize that I am in a descent now and that I lack strength (contact with the Creator).

It is already a realization that I am in darkness, that I have lost touch with the Creator. In other words, the point of awareness of or contact with spirituality is preserved, and that is very important. Now I begin my work from that point instead of a state completely detached from spirituality.

Expressed differently, you do not lose your previous level due to a “sin”; rather, you fall from the first degree because you have been given a desire of a second, higher degree. The magnitude of the uncorrected desire of the second degree, the sin that is being revealed to you now, overshadows the corrected degree, although the first degree stays inside the second in the corrected form.

It is actually an ascent, and not a fall; you have achieved the first degree and have now revealed the second degree, its opposite side. In the AHP of the Upper One, you feel yourself as “fallen,” a “sinner.” However, it is the way you define yourself from the perspective of the corrected first degree.

It exemplifies the saying “a person’s soul teaches him” because I already have a soul. Indeed, the first degree is my soul. Afterward, I will develop a soul of a magnitude that corresponds to the second degree, then the third, and so on.

Each time higher degrees will be emerging inside me; they will conceal the previous degrees to a greater extent, but I will always have the strength, the connection to the Light in order to ascend. I always discern each subsequent degree of an ascent based on the degree which I have already achieved. It means that I will have an opportunity to correctly diagnose what is happening to me and how to draw the Light that Reforms.

My state doesn’t resemble anything more than that of an unconsciousness patient because I am constantly equipped with the force of the mutual guarantee. I already signed its conditions, I am observing them, and I’m in a state in which I do not lose it, although from a personal perspective it may still happen. And then I suddenly realize that I am “drilling a hole in the boat.”

I have not yet drilled it all the way, I have just started, but in a moment it will be complete, and at that precise instant it begins to dawn on me. This is the revelation of egoism of the next degree. However, the previous degree, the bond between friends, remains inside me and is called “one is elevated in sanctity, and never lowered in sanctity.”

Therefore, Baal HaSulam writes that the real stumbling block is attaining the first degree. Until it happens a person feels completely confused.
[23208]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/11/10, “The Love of the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Question: How can we realize the correct connection between us? Do we need to perform purely spiritual actions?

Answer: No, we have to perform various actions aimed at connection in this world: in the group and circulation. We have to present the world with a new approach to children and adult education, to the way people relate to each other, and to show that all of our relationships have to serve the spiritual goal: the Creator’s revelation within us.

All these actions are called commandments, and we need to carry them out so as to correct our egoistic desire until the Creator becomes revealed to us in full force. The broken desires, all the mutual hatred between us, are called “anti-commandments” or anti-Creator. By transforming hatred into love, I perform commandments, meaning actions that bind us together. I perceive the forms of the revealed connection that demonstrate how each desire has to connect with the others as the Creator’s image.

That is, the Creator is the correct connection between us! We perceive Him as the correct, binding network that connects us and incorporates us into this system. This is what is called the Creator, and I need to reach this state. For this reason, He is called “Bo-reh” (come and see).

This includes physical actions as well: work in the group, friends’ gatherings, conventions, and joint study. However, these external actions need to be supplemented by inner work, genuine inner corrections (corrections of the soul) since the Creator demands the correction of the heart.

These actions are called “material commandments,” although they are not carried out with hands or legs. These are spiritual actions which I can perform only by having the Light that Reforms. I don’t do it by myself! The three of us together – I, the group, and the Creator – perform various transformations. Only together! Not a single correction can be performed by one element; all three of them have to be present.
[23938]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/17/10, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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Question: How do we find a correct balance between Kabbalah circulation and inner work in the group?

Answer: These are two opposite lines of work, which at the same time support each other. On one hand, we need to connect in the group as cohesively as possible, be exclusive, and follow the group’s statute written by the Kabbalists, the rules and laws described by Rabash. Inside the group, everyone must comply with the rules. On the other hand, we need to be absolutely free and open to the outside world and explain everything in the most simple and delicate manner.

We need to connect as strongly as possible and preserve ourselves so as to advance by a narrow, straight line toward the goal! This is the work "in a line." And regarding the outside world, we are a circle: There are no differences or limits, no top or bottom; everyone is equal. Take what you want, without any pressure.

These are two contradictory approaches, and we need to be aware of them.
[23935]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/17/10, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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Question: The convention will host people from more than 50 countries whom I will be seeing for the first time. How can I pray for somebody who’s a stranger to me?

Answer: I don’t differentiate between friends and strangers: I see only their spiritual points. Every one of them has an egoistic desire and also a point in the heart which wishes to break through and reach the Upper world.

In outward appearance a person may be white, black, red,or yellow, but what difference does it make to me? All I care about is the point in his heart for that is what is called a soul! Whereas the body with its five senses pertains to the animate level. You can transplant its organs, remove its parts, and replace them with artificial ones, and none of this would affect the soul. The soul is what is important because we unify on the level of souls.

The point in the heart is independent of a person’s appearance. We’ll be receiving guests from all over the world: black from Africa, red from South America, white from Europe, and yellow from China. But we know that their skin color does not affect their points in the heart. Our differences extend to our corporeal qualities and mentalities, but not to spirituality.

So why should unifying with everybody be difficult? We will come together and unite, reveal the Creator between us, and the prayer of the many will elevate us to spirituality!
[23539]
From the Kabbalah For Beginners, “Prayer Of The Many,” 10/11/10

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Question: If a person cannot agree with the external form of the group, the way it appears to him, will he be able to build the kind of attitude where the group will raise him?

Answer: It is erroneous to think that I cannot demand an awakening from the group because it seems uncorrected to me. We are talking about different levels of creation. To my egoism the friends may seem like criminals who do not wish to unite and who are indifferent to everything.

However, on the other hand, why are they here? The Creator is holding them here from Above, even if they are incapable of anything on their own. He chose them and brought them to the group. He knows that they are ready. In His eyes they are worthy of advancing.

And since the Creator gave preference to them in particular, I must accept this. I value the friends for the fact that they are chosen by the Creator rather than for their personal qualities. How dear can they become to me? They can become as dear as my own children. I experience natural, “animal” love for my children, without any connection to their merits. It is the same with the friends: If the Creator chose them, I can develop the same kind of attitude to them as well.

Then the next stage comes, the group becomes stronger, and I begin to “sell” the importance to the friends. Then together, in a mutual guarantee, we can work on mutual realization of each other’s importance. Now I understand: The friends influence me, and for this reason they are 100% important in my spiritual fate. I assign them the uppermost importance, like to a judge who can sentence me to a lifetime in prison.

I no longer despise or curse the friends. They may be unpleasant in my eyes, but they are important nonetheless, and this is already a completely different attitude. After all, I have no choice. The Creator placed the group in front of me. If I manage to get along with it, the Upper World will be revealed to me, and if not, I will be sentenced to life in this world.

Now you decide how you treat a judge. He could be a chief mobster who is set out against you, hiding under a judge’s gown. But I cannot raise a finger to him. Proceeding by faith above reason, I need to justify my friends who are chosen by the Creator. And who knows, they may be completely unlike how my egoism presents them.

If I exert effort, and I am willing to selflessly flow into the group, I will feel that I acquire a special Kli which will allow me to demand a mutual guarantee. Thus, by turning to the friends with a demand, suddenly I will see that, in essence, I am appealing to my own desires which seemed foreign to me. My whole work will turn inward, until my friends and I become one whole.
[23422]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/10, “Hezekiah Turned His Face to the Wall”

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Question: What is a thought?

Answer: A thought is the awareness of what I am feeling, what the reasons, purpose, and consequences of my feeling are. A thought is what exists inside the desire, in the sensation within the desire. A thought without a desire is a philosophy; it is groundless. There is matter and the form that the matter takes. There is a perception of the form and the thought of “why the matter feels this way.”

Question: Do all of us need to be “like one man in one opinion or thought”?

Answer: We need to reach a state where our desires will become mutual, common, and integral so there will not be a difference in our thoughts, desires, and the Lights which permeate through us as one Light. At the same time, however, everyone will also feel their separate lives, just like an organ inside a body: A heart operates differently than the lungs, but they share a common life inside one body, above the impressions and sensations of every organ. And this higher life that they all live is called Elokut (a spiritual life).

Each organ has a separate life, each participates within the general system of the body, and there is also the mutual life of the entire body. Everything is interconnected, and nothing cancels out the other, nothing disappears, not hatred or love, as nothing disappears in spirituality.
[23471]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/10, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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Question: I have a problem that hasn’t been resolved for a number of years, nothing works, and this situation is an obstacle on my path toward a mutual guarantee. When will it disappear? Perhaps, I am doing something wrong?

Answer: You shouldn’t pray for making your problem disappear; rather, you should ask for the ability to rise above it in your search for spirituality, that is, to build a screen on all of your difficulties with the right intention. In this case, all your troubles will become indispensable for the purpose of obtaining a screen.

There are many unpleasant circumstances in our lives, but the more we grow, the better we understand that they are actually beneficial for us. Otherwise, we would do many silly things. Our fear, shame, and jealousy keep us within certain limits, within a special attitude toward the world. With their help, we advance. It balances us out.

All bad and good phenomena in our lives are necessary since they stabilize us on our path. I don’t even try to figure out what helps or harms me; all I ask for is to be above them and to adhere to a higher degree.

Question: How do I know what will happen to me at a higher degree if I am not there yet?

Answer: This is the reason it is called “faith above reason.” I am about to connect to a higher degree. Hence, I don’t want to know anything about it; all I need is the power to cling to it. It is insignificant to me whether I will experience difficulty or not. One gets fulfilled only when the desire to bestow is built on top of the desire to receive.
[23198]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/11/10, “The Love of the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Question: What is the difference between caring for a person from this small circle of people with whom I have signed the conditions of the mutual guarantee and caring for other people?

Answer: They are not consciously in the system of the arrangement.

Question cont.: Does this mean that I should not care for them?

Answer: You must care for everyone in the world, but they will receive this coverage to the degree of their aspiration for the mutual guarantee, according to the degree of their correction.

Question cont.: How will you make sure that they do not lack anything?

Answer: You need to make sure that the Light passes through the group to the entire world. The Light will spout through every channel and direct them to the purpose of creation. Then, deficiencies will become revealed to them, but this will happen softly. They will discover the existence of the medicine for their problems, will take it, and heal.
[23201]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/11/10, “The Love of the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Question: It is written that when 600,000 people will have no other business in life but guarding the fulfillment of my needs, then I will be satisfied. When it says that “they will have no other business in life,” it confuses me.

Answer: There is nothing else with which to concern ourselves. We should only be concerned with every person having an opportunity to rise above his ego.

Question cont.: I can list a great deal of things which are still necessary.

Answer: No, I only want to free myself of obstacles in order to give myself to thoughts about unity so as to reveal the Creator in them.

Question cont.: What about taking care of yourself, work, and family?

Answer: We are speaking about those who strive to reach the mutual guarantee. This means that you only want to care for unity, where the Creator is to be revealed. So, we pledge to provide you with peace if these worries interfere with your work on the mutual guarantee.
[23205]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/11/10, “The Love of the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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