Question: In what way do you as a Kabbalist adapt yourself to the students and the group? How do you interconnect and annul yourself?

Answer: And how do we adapt ourselves to newborns and children as they grow up and become more and more adult? They do not adapt to us, but we always adapt to them. They say that a small child is the head of the family because the family exists for him.

Why do I need a group: for them to serve me or for me to serve them? I must raise the students to the next level.

Question: Do you, as a teacher, clearly see if the group, the students, perceive you correctly?

Answer: I keep my students in myself like “a hen on eggs.” I fill them, control them, keep them on a short leash, cause certain reactions, certain influences, monitor their reaction, and in accordance with this, I change myself—not them. In Kabbalah, the teacher must adapt to the students more than the students do to the teacher.

Question: When you hold students within you, do you keep contact with them through the Creator or are they inside your spiritual Partzuf like a child in the womb?

Answer: This means in the Creator because the system called “womb” in which I carry my students is the Creator in me. Only in Him are the next souls born.
[230091]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/1/18

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Question: Is the appearance of a teacher in a person’s life an explicit manifestation of the Creator, which makes it clear to the student that he is ready for correction?

Answer: Yes, this is a message from the Creator to a person, and then everything depends on the person himself.

Question: Can a student be higher than his teacher in a spiritual aspect?

Answer: Certainly! Would a good teacher envy his student who has outgrown him? He will just be proud of him.

Question: Is this possible? Has it ever happened before?

Answer: Of course!
[231435]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/18/18

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Rabash, Shlavey Sulam, “Purpose of Society” (1.1): We have gathered here to establish a society for all who wish to follow the path and method of Baal HaSulam, the way by which to climb the degrees of man and not remain as a beast…

Rabash wrote the first article on the work in the group on a cigarette paper when he was sitting with me on a bench in the park. We then bought him a typewriter, and for the whole day the sounds of tapping on keys came from his room. This was his life. He kept thinking of the right way to express his thoughts. At the time of writing articles, he was a completely different person.

We cannot even imagine the depth of his work. Even now I only get the uppermost layer of his writings.

Question: Even an article that we studied 200 times…?

Answer: It does not matter. In Kabbalah, there is no division of information for beginners and advanced Kabbalists, because the depth of the text depends only on the reader who comprehends it. In these articles he laid out almost everything. They are designed for those who want to rise from the animal level of development to the human (Adam) level.
[228229]
From KabTV’s “The Last Generation” 12/26/17

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Question: What does the Kabbalistic principle “Do not show a fool a job half done” mean?

Answer: The Creator does not show us half of our work until the step is completed.

The measure of the full step is called “seah” (an ancient measure of granular substances). Until we fill up our “cup” with a full measure of effort, we will not feel that we have done anything. We are shown neither half of the work, nor a quarter—only the completely finished work.

In every Partzuf (spiritual system) there cannot be less than ten Sefirot, otherwise their presence in Malchut (the tenth part of the Partzuf) is not felt. Only after all the processes in the nine upper Sefirot reach Malchut does she begin to feel that something is happening. Therefore, it is written that the spirituality is not divided into parts—there is only an integral structure.
[225165]
From the Kabbalah lesson in Russian, 11/26/17

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Question: Is it difficult being Michael Laitman?

Answer: I do not know. I never asked nor answered this question. I have a duty, and I must realize it.

Remark: But people know you, criticize you, love you—whatever…

My Comment: As for whether they love me more or hate me more, I find it difficult to say. And to work for posterity only for the sake of being appreciated afterward is also not in my nature.

I will say only one thing. At the age of thirty-five, I was a fairly wealthy man who could afford not to work and to live peacefully somewhere on an island or in Canada. One could prefer this kind of life, but I could not afford it.

I chose the path with a lot of mistakes, doubts, and torments. But this is my way.
[225509]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/31/17

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Question: How do you communicate with your teacher and how do you learn from your students?

Answer: I communicate with my teacher on the spiritual level. It is not a problem that he is not in his body and I am still in it because our communication is on the level of equivalence of spiritual, not corporeal form. This is exactly how I am in contact with my students as well. Whether or not they are aware of it, there is an internal contact between us.

Comment: It is said that a teacher can learn from his students.

My Comment: Of course. It is practically a daily occurrence. My students all over the world constantly communicate among each other, forming various virtual groups, and the individual souls merge into one common soul. Each student displays a particular quality, a nuance in the spiritual Kli (vessel). By feeling them, I reveal new opportunities through them. They are like my eyes and arms.

Question: So, we are not talking here about some actions when you can observe a behavior and learn something from it?

Answer: No, this is solely an internal feeling.

Question: How often does this happen?

Answer: At every lesson, every conversation, all the time. And particularly when they form a certain union between them. Then that union plays in perfect harmony, like a well-tuned piano.
[224775]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/31/17

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Question: Can the Creator be a person’s direct teacher?

Answer: No. Our egoism would want this because it wants to receive, to capture, to seize, to enslave. The Creator can serve as a teacher only through the group, within it. To the same degree that I merge with the group, enter into it, dissolve within it, I begin to discover the presence of the Creator within it.
[224253]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 12/31/17

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Question: Is there a difference between a teacher, and a teacher in Kabbalah?

Answer: There is a teacher in Kabbalah, and there are also his assistants who teach certain aspects of Kabbalah. But in any case, everything comes from a teacher who sets the general direction and spirit of development. His assistants report to him, but each teaches separately.

Question: Does the teacher feel responsible for every word that he says to the students?

Answer: Absolutely. One can pass on this knowledge only to the extent that one believes that it is true, and that one has experienced it, and suffered for it. It belongs to him, meaning that he has paid for it.
[220483]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 10/1/17

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Question: Do you have some kind of proof of your spiritual attainment or your students’ attainment?

Answer: Who can guarantee that a Kabbalist understands what he learns? Only a person who is present in the classes can determine if the teacher understands and is familiar with what he teaches.

Question: Are there any external signs you can use to determine if a person understands the wisdom of Kabbalah or not?

Answer: None! Baal HaSulam observes only indirect signs: a recognized teacher who is teaching according to the true sources and doesn’t tie the students to himself. It cannot be otherwise.
[219482]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 9/24/17

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Question: What is the annulment of the student before the teacher?

Answer: In order to receive from the teacher, you have to annul yourself before him. This is a necessary condition. What does it mean to annul, not like in ordinary life that has nothing to do with spirituality, but in what relates to your spiritual qualities?

You must annul them, become zero, “enter” into the teacher, and then you will be fully at his disposal and he will create your next spiritual state out of you.

When a mother breastfeeds her baby, he sucks milk, receiving his sustenance, thanks to which he lives. It is the same here—a disciple must receive his sustenance from the teacher and therefore he is obliged to annul himself, to open his mouth and receive.

Question: Do you remember the first time you had to annul yourself before Rabash? How was this expressed?

Answer: Perhaps it was much easier for me because I wanted very much to have a teacher who would tell me everything possible. Besides, Rabash spoke very little and I had to somehow understand, guess, and extract details.

But in principle, you search for how you can become inconspicuous next to him so that everything that is in him would be automatically transferred into you.

Question: Was it hard or desirable for you?

Answer: At first it was very desirable. I wanted nothing else, only to enter his “cave” and sit next to him.

Then it became more difficult because egoism was constantly growing in order to rise above it, to reach such a coarseness of egoistic desire to annul and in it receive everything the teacher wants to give. Therefore, egoism should grow constantly, and rejection becomes stronger and stronger.
[219332]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 10/1/17

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