Question: What is it like under the guidance of a spiritual teacher? Is it like a trip with a tourist guide in London or like dangerous mountain climbing where you cannot take a step to the left or to the right without a guide since you might fall?

Answer: In a tour of London you can listen with half an ear to the tourist guide and at the same time walk around as you like. But is this similar to the spiritual path, which you know nothing about?

You have to enter spirituality. The guide tells you that in order to enter spirituality you have to keep certain conditions, but you say that you don’t accept half of these conditions but keep on following the group. How can that be? Can you climb a mountain if you don’t accept half of the guide’s instructions? You have to be as obedient as a baby and totally annul yourself in the arms of the guide.

Question: But I am not a baby I am an adult! I gained a wealth of experience in my life and I have studied with other teachers before.

Answer: You are even less than a baby! If you don’t listen to the guide’s advice, you are like a grownup with the tiny brain of a baby who doesn’t let others take care of him. There are strict laws here that cannot be changed. You cannot ask for mercy like in court. In court you can still cry and plead for mercy. But here there are no manipulations that will help: There is a law, “He has given a law that cannot be broken.” Choose: Do you accept it or not?

There are many people who climb mountains and there are always those who stumble and fall into the great abyss, back into the domination of the egoistic forces, the Sitra Achra. Only few reach the king’s palace that is on the mountaintop: those who have the patience, which means that they try as hard as they can to follow the guide, against any thoughts they may have and against their own mind.

These are the small differences that determine everything where you encounter the resistance of your mind and cannot overcome its demands and do the opposite compared to what the teacher or Baal HaSulam demand of you. It is because you agree with everything else in your ego, but here you encounter what is against your ego, and it is here that you need to ask for help and to ascend.

These are the points that you encounter and which you cannot overcome. They connect and become a line, a path that brings you to the Lord’s palace. It is impossible to advance any other way. You say: “But I agree to everything else!” It is wonderful that you agree, but everything else has nothing to do with spirituality. Spirituality is only in the points where you don’t agree!

You advance only through the points where you disagree: one point after the next. You have to agree on them, under the influence of the environment, the study, etc. but your agreement doesn’t have to be pragmatic. If you agree to disseminate as the teacher asks because you hope to receive a reward, then it is not working in faith above reason anymore, but for a corporeal reward.

We should be careful in using the points of friction and not making them worthwhile. You cannot agree to disseminate in order to feel that you are great standing before a crown or in order to make money. You have to follow these stumbling points in faith above reason and then these points will turn into a line.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: The spiritual path goes only through points of friction where I disagree with the teacher and the group. How can I agree if I see that you are wrong?

Answer: Of course you see that the teacher is wrong. You also think that the Creator is wrong in having arranged this tough life in this world for us. Couldn’t He have made it peaceful, pleasurable, and serene?

This spiritual path is against your ego, which means against your desire and your mind. You must constantly rise above the points of friction, which are against your feelings and your mind, one by one, over and over again. These are the points that the spiritual path is made of that become a “door, an opening, and entrance” to adhesion with the Creator and with His creation: “He is one and His name is One.”

This step is always above your reason, where the next stage is. Everything else with which you agree—the pleasant meals together, the friends, the interesting trips—have nothing to do with spirituality! These are only accompanying factors that are meant to bring out the points of friction which are most important.

On the one hand, there is the ordinary life in this world, and on the other hand, there is the life in the group. All this works out very well on all sides. But you are stuck in the middle and cannot agree on certain points and you think to yourself: “Oh well never mind, this is nonsense, so what I if don’t agree! I agree with everything else.”

In your ordinary life you get married, you build a family, work, and do everything, and you live in the group, work with your friends, pay maaser, and participate in all the events. But in certain states you suddenly get stuck and cannot agree and cannot leap over them. At the same time, however, you take the right side or the left side without any problems. Of course, you don’t have a problem, since your ego agrees with everything that happens there.

You should only identify the place where there can be a door, an opening and an entrance. It is there where it hurts the most! You don’t want to evoke these points since this is where you feel the real friction, like a painful injection.

You are with everyone in your feelings and your mind! You love to study, to discuss spiritual matters, you love to spend time with the friends, you give them presents, you “buy the friends,” you invite them over. But sometimes it seems that when it comes to certain matters the group makes wrong decisions. You don’t object but wait quietly until the friends will finally grow up and understand their mistakes and correct them, which means, that they will agree with you. You understand that there is no alternative and nowhere to go since you admit that it is a wonderful, great, smart group and that nothing compares to it.

It is a very common attitude that is typical of most students, but gradually, after several years of study, you begin to feel and see these points of friction in which you get stuck. It is there, in these points, where the entrance that is about to open is. It isn’t a door but a wall, but by working in faith above reason, you will see a door in this wall that will immediately open up and become an opening and an entrance.

The entrance can only be in these points of friction and they are what you should look for and differentiate from everything else! Everything else is under the control of your ego. Only in these points of friction can there be the opening to another dimension by the power of faith.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: A person comes to study when he is an adult with an existing perspective of life. So he partly agrees with what he hears from the teacher and carries it out and he partly disagrees. Can he develop spiritually with such split feelings?

Answer: It is natural for a person who hasn’t yet felt the spiritual world, and so because of this, he doesn’t see it in the teacher. It says “one judges by his own flaws.” So you see the corruptions in the teacher according to your own corruption.

Here you need the power of the group to speak to you and convince you that the teacher is great and important. If you respect and value the friends and work with them, you will be able to overcome your feeling of disrespect by the power of the group.

This disrespect is natural and logical, and it cannot be any other way. It was given to you on purpose from above, but at the same time you were given a tool, a means from above by which you can overcome it. You have to get closer to the group and through the group get closer to the Creator. This is why this order of work is arranged for you.

But if it doesn’t work out, the problem is not that you disrespect the teacher. It is natural to disrespect him. The point is that you disrespect the group! You cannot connect to the friends in order to receive the power by which you can break through all the barriers.

You need to overcome the egoistic rejection of the friends to some extent: Start getting closer to them during meals that you have together, while singing, and in different pleasant moments. Start from a distance from your ego so it feels it’s worthwhile to be with the friends. You were given a chance to receive power from the group and by that to adhere to the teacher, and through the teacher to adhere to the Creator, and thus gradually receive the Light that Reforms.

It is natural for your ego to instinctively object to everything that the teacher says. Only a fool doesn’t object since he doesn’t understand where he is. Your nature rejects the Creator, as it says: “A person’s inclination is evil from his youth,” and so you are opposite from the spiritual work and from the teacher; you are opposite from the inner essence of the group, but the group has an external form too by which you can gradually get close to it.

The greatest difficulty is that a person doesn’t perceive the group as a means that allows him to connect with the friends in order to adhere to the teacher together. The teacher will connect you all with the Creator. We don’t have to turn into Hasidim, but you do have to feel that you are small compared to the teacher, just like a person has to feel that he is small compared to the group and all the more so compared to the Creator.

Start managing and arranging things by using all the means that you were given in this world and put them in the right order: This is me, this is the group, this is the study, and this is the teacher. Everything else is unknown because it comes from the Creator, but this is your entrance to Holiness, where you suddenly see a door that immediately becomes an opening and you enter.

If you don’t fulfill this condition, nothing will work out. A person has to depict this to himself, even draw it and write it, and then continue and correct it every day. So you should clarify this question more and more, day by day, until you fulfill everything.

You should understand that it is about clear and accurate laws. If you don’t keep them, then you can go not only through this life but through the next couple of lives too. No matter how many times you return to this world, it will still be the same. The spiritual Reshimot (reminiscences) are not fulfilled on every level unless it goes through these special conditions!

Everything works according to certain laws in nature. It is because of our lack of understanding that we may think that there is no law here, but wherever we can discover it, we see that “He has given a law that cannot be broken.” We have to understand this, to learn these laws and keep them. Our ego doesn’t agree to that, but we can rise above it a bit. Why should we wait for the sufferings to force us to get away from our ego? It is better to do it of our own will, by our mind, which means by acquiring the values from the group. The group will help us keep away from our egoistic mind and will draw the Light that Reforms unto us that will build a new scale of priorities and different ways of thinking.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam is our guide and this means that I must accept everything that is in his books as the absolute truth. If I can understand what it says in my own mind, then I accept it of course, but even if I don’t understand, I should accept it even without understanding. Otherwise I will not reach the desired goal.

A guide means that he is a couple of steps before me telling me: “Follow me, to the right, to the left, straight ahead!” And I follow him. I don’t see the road, but he sees and is walking ahead of me. When I lift my foot in order to take the next step, I don’t know where to put it, and so I ask him: “Should I put it this way?” And he answers: “This way! Now a bit more to the left; not that way, a bit more to the left.” And I follow his instructions. This is following the guide.

It is also the same in our world. If I go mountain climbing or to some other dangerous place where I do not know the road, I put my life in the hands of the guide. It isn’t a tour guide in London; it is called a source, a guide.

The guide of the Bnei Baruch group is Baal HaSulam. If you want to study with us, you should know that we study according to our source. If not, then you should look for somewhere else to study. This is what Rabash told me when I asked him how I could be sure I was in the right place. I was thirty years old, full of energy, I had everything: health, family, money, everything one needs in life. I also asked him the same question: “I am following you and I have to dedicate 20 years before I reach anything, if I find out that this path is wrong, I will discover it when I am 50 and it would already be too late to correct anything in the few years that I would have left. How can I now be sure that I am in the right place?” And he answered: “Go and look for the right place.”

I was disappointed with the answer. I thought that if he were a spiritual guide, he should advise me to make the right choice. But this was his advice: “You should look for yourself, I cannot tell you.” If you choose a certain place, you should accept the teacher and follow him blindly. He becomes your head.

So if anyone doubts me, you should check me with regard to Baal HaSulam. I will be only too happy since I see my mission as presenting him to the public. This is how a person should check if this path is right for him or not; it is a waste of time to study if one doesn’t accept this method.

But if a person has already decided to study in one of our groups, he cannot accept only part of what we study and reject other parts. It turns out that with this he makes a decision based on his ego, thinking that it is more important than the path that we follow and study. I respect his opinion, but it is impossible to advance if one doesn’t accept this method above reason. Sometimes when you reject it but still accept the mind of the upper, you can advance, but if you don’t agree with the teacher about corporeal actions since you judge by your corporeal mind, on the corporeal level, then it cannot be. It is clear how you should perform them and you need to perform them in faith above reason.

Where faith is involve, the influence of the group is necessary. It is very simple: You either agree and accept things or you don’t belong and don’t advance along our path by even one step. A person has to calculate things, and if he disagrees with the teacher when it comes to corporeal matters, then he will certainly disagree when it comes to spiritual issues. He is only deluding himself that in spirituality everything is fine, but his work will lead to nothing. This is the reason that only very few people reach the goal.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, Letter 26: That power, to heed the word of the sages in this reality, in Dalet, is called “faith.”

If you want the upper to take care of your spiritual development, you have to be like a baby and place yourself in the hands of the group and teacher so that they can take care of you.

But if you don’t annul yourself before them, you will not be able to go on to the next level. Only then can they clean you like it says: “the mother shall come and clean her son.” It cannot be any other way. This is exactly what we do in this world when parents take care of a baby and he naturally annuls himself before us. In the spiritual world, however, you have to place yourself by yourself in the hands of the greater so that he can take care of you.

There is no other way. Who else can take care of you? What would happen if a baby was a big strong dimwit and not small and helpless, it would be impossible to take care of him. It would simply be scary to come near such a monster with such a big ego.

A baby has to be fed from a bottle, he has to be cleaned, diapered, and given everything that a baby needs, but in the spiritual sense, of course. He should also be put to bed and then awakened. He should be taught and brought up! After taking care of everything that he needs on the corporeal level, you should begin to teach him; when his body has received everything that it needs, you should gradually give him the inner filling so that he will gradually learn to annul himself.

You don’t start off your spiritual path from the level of a baby and not even from the level of an embryo. You have not clarified and differentiated your drop of spiritual semen yet. You still have to imagine the Reshimot (spiritual genes) that you have to fulfill: to use all your physical powers, your mind, and all the means that you have in this world in order to develop from the present that you were given, from this drop of spiritual semen.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam: “Disclosing a Portion, Covering Two”: “There is an idiom among great sages when they come to disclose a profound matter: They begin their words with, ‘I am disclosing a portion and covering two.’”

First, why should anything be covered in the first place? What’s the benefit of hiding?

On the whole, all of creation (Beria) is covered by different covers. This is where the word “creation” stems from (the Hebrew root “Bar” meaning, external to the Creator), which stemmed from Him with the help of a cover and can therefore exist. If it existed inside the Creator, it would be no more than Malchut of the world of Infinity that is full of the Light and under the domination of the Creator, having nothing of its own. The created being is external to the Creator and has his own reality, mind, and feeling that are different from those of the Creator.

If it weren’t for this difference, the created being would be inside the Creator, swallowed by the Light. But the created being is different and the difference is created as a result of the distance. The distance in spirituality is concealment. In our world the distance determines the concealment, while in spirituality, the concealment itself keeps us distant in many ways.

The difference in mind and feeling and in attributes is called the lack of equivalence of form with the Creator. This is essential for the created being in order to be himself and to exist. There is a feeling and a mind that we attribute to the Creator, to absolute love and bestowal, the Light of Hochma that is dressed in the Light of Hassadim, and which is revealed to us in the Partzuf of Aba and the Partzuf of Ima (AVI). We, as souls, should be different and opposite from them in the attribute of ZON.

Thus we see that the shattering is actually the action that is meant to bring the created beings to revelation. The created beings have to be opposite from the Creator, and then by external actions that they perform, they acquire a Masach (screen) and the Returning Light, attributes that are equal in form to the Creator.

The created being is initially divided into two: the inner part which is opposite from the Creator in its desires and thoughts and the external part, the cover, the Masach, that resembles the Creator. As a result, the created being exists by himself and at the same time is adhered to the Creator. Further, the created being must include these two opposite attributes, these two opposite states, and act in them, despite their polarity, since he doesn’t resemble the Creator or His opposite side, the evil inclination.

The created being is the middle line to the extent that he can connect these two opposite forms inside him and unite them.

In order to allow the created being to do so, there is the law of “disclosing a portion, covering two.”

According to which it is possible to reveal something, which means to bring the created being closer to the Creator only if he is brought back to the previous state with additional Aviut (thickness), additional heaviness.

If the created being made a step forward, revealing a portion, thus getting closer to the Creator, he has more power. But by that he is unbalanced and now the Creator’s powers operate on him differently compared to the previous state, and he is brought back with a new Aviut, although it is concealed. If later the created being is added, covers a portion, he is brought to the state of freewill again.

Thus, the created being constantly has the option of freewill and of getting closer to the Creator. So by disclosing a portion, Kabbalists have to cover two. This allows the created beings to be detached from the Creator so that they can advance towards Him only by keeping their independence and their autonomy. Of course, we mustn’t confuse people when we guide them along the spiritual path like a “locomotive” or a “shepherd.” It is possible only in rare cases in order to establish the basis for the work in which confusion is the stimulus that allows them to overcome the confusion and by that discover something new. On the other hand, we mustn’t speak to them about what may lead them to a dead end and to disorientation.

So I am asking all our friends who are studying to be teachers to work with the public, including the teaching of the wisdom of Kabbalah and the integral education, to constantly feel the hearts of the people and reveal to them only what they need in order to advance. On the one hand, we shouldn’t take their freewill, and on the other hand, we shouldn’t confuse them.

A teacher has to be a doctor, a healer of souls, and for that he needs to know the exact dosage. After all the Torah can be the elixir of life or the potion of death.

A teacher should be an experienced guide, a guide who loves his pupils and who actually participates in their advancement. He provides them with exactly what they need and should keep them away from unripe fruit or from overripe fruit.

There is a time for everything, and the wisdom of Kabbalah allows us to calculate the exact dosage because we connect in our hearts, in our souls, on the part of the students or at least on the part of the teacher. This is actually the type of study that we should yearn for.

It is all thanks to the safeguarding by which a person remains a created being, external to the Creator, and can advance freely. “To be a free nation in our country,” are words in the Israeli national anthem, which means that even when you stand before the Creator and reach adhesion with Him by connection, you don’t annul myself but rather operate equally on the same height.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12.11.13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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A door, an opening, and an entrance appear all at once in spirituality. So don’t expect to see a door from a distance, then approach it and open it. When you see a door, it immediately opens! This is the law, and accordingly, if it is fulfilled, it will happen.

It is only if my vessel becomes similar to the Light—which happens suddenly like the exodus from Egypt, which was in a hurry—do I suddenly see a door that immediately becomes an opening, and I enter.

We can perform such an action in complete faith which means if I put a Masach (screen) of “in order to bestow” upon my vessel, and I become equal to the upper level.

Baal HaSulam, Letter 26: That power, to heed the word of the sages in this reality in Dalet, is called “faith”…

A person who wants to get closer to the opening must work according to the faith of the sages. To the extent that he is adhered to the greatness of his teacher and the group, he receives power by his dedication and can approach this door. He doesn’t have any powers of his own. This is how it is arranged in our world, and a person is given a teacher, a group, and the study, in order to summon the Light that Reforms, which can bring a person closer to the entrance, to the spiritual world.

…is called “faith,” as it is not established at once, but through education, adaptation, and through work.

This is what integral education is meant for, so that, by using it, people will receive the Light that Reforms that will change them. This is the difference between integral education and ordinary education that doesn’t summon the Light that Reforms and doesn’t change a person. Therefore, it is so important that every guide and teacher of integral education who works with the public should be strongly connected to the group and the study and only then to go out to disseminate.

It is similar to the tutoring of a child, who would be like an unturned stone were it not for the tutor who rears him. This is why this work is generally called “a robe,” as it is an overcoat, “beyond” human conception…

That is, above the mind of that child.

In the corporeal world, there are children who don’t have a mind yet, who are ready to annul themselves before the grownup so that he will take care of them. This is how it is naturally arranged in corporeality. If a person were born as a grownup—with a developed mind, with his own feelings and opinions—it would be impossible to take care of him. Only when he annuls himself like a baby does he allow others to do whatever they want with him. Only when he lowers his head, believing and knowing that he totally depends on you, will you be able to do something for him.

Can you imagine whether it is easy for a grown person to subdue himself that way? However, this is what we actually must do. We must take an example from this world when it comes to the phase of conception, Ibur, suckling, Yenika, and mind, Mochin. Otherwise, you will not be able to advance.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Do you see a student as small or do you see his potential when you answer questions?

Answer: I don’t see any form at all! I don’t see the student or the act of dissemination, but rather a desire that has no physical form, no limits. It seems like a spot, a cloud, and I work for it. But I don’t see a person at that moment. What difference does it make what he looks like? Even in our world when you live with someone for a long time you stop seeing his externality but rather communicate with his inner self.
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From the Talk about Group and Dissemination 10/23/13

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Question: If, for example, the entire central group transcends the Machsom together, what would happen with the daily Kabbalah lesson?

Answer: The daily Kabbalah lesson will be held beyond the Machsom. Now, too, I give you energy and the knowledge of everything that happens beyond the Machsom.

Talmud Eser Sefirot and the other sources are written on the spiritual level, but at the moment you perceive them on the level of the corporeal world. Beyond the Machsom you will already feel it on a different level.

Suppose I examine a painting together with the artist and he says: “You can add a bit of yellow here or red here and here a bit more blue.” He relates to the painting in a strictly technical manner, while I am impressed by the colors of the picture and how it influences me. Usually a painter sketches an outline of a picture by using a pencil before he begins to paint it. And I don’t see that.

The Creator also makes a pencil sketch before he paints the whole colorful picture before us. Gradually, you begin to see the inner connections, the inner forces in this general picture. You begin to feel how he adds certain new colors to the painting, something illuminates, and something is removed and creates new contrasts. All this sparkles before you in your senses. You will determine the level of interaction by the Aviut (the depth of the desire) through the Masach (screen), through the forces that depict this world to us. It will be clear to you that everything stems from one force only, from one intention: to make you as perfect as He is, as your source.

Question: What did you feel just before you transcended the Machsom?

Answer: The same states that one feels before the exodus from Egypt: terrible pressure on all sides, a full yearning forward, fear of the unknown, of what there is before me, and at the same time, the fear of not reaching the spiritual attainment. All this happens not when you yearn forward artificially, but when you really act, yearning for the center of the group and at the same time pushing yourself from behind by disseminating the integral method, just like you spur on a horse by using a whip in order to push ahead, and then you break through.
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From the Talk about Group and Dissemination 10/22/13

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