Question: Why do you say that the importance of the teacher should not be taken for granted by his students?

Answer: Imagine that the president comes to us on a special visit to meet you. He asks us about you and says that he has been looking for a person like you for years until it became clear that you are here. He comes to you with his entourage, shakes your hand, and then you go into the conference room together for a talk after which you come out with illuminated faces, and he gets into his presidential car and departs to the president’s home.

After this visit you carry on as usual with your friends, but we already look at you differently. Whether we want to or not, but we have to be careful. Something new has been created among us and we don’t know how to relate to you, how to behave next to you. You say something and we listen to you skeptically, but we pay careful attention to every word you say. Our attention is focused on you, we already depend on you, our ego is “locked’ on you, and there is nothing we can do about that. This is the natural way of prostration, of reverence, that is a naturally innate part of us.

But this is not the real work. If I want to connect with the Creator and reach an equivalence of form with Him, I have to rise above my nature, to change it into something that is opposite and unknown in its oppositeness. Of course, it will be very difficult to fulfill this since it’s as if I am turning myself inside out, like a glove, going out of my skin, killing myself.

But it can be done easily. Kabbalists say that it isn’t a problem at all. If I have enough fuel, then the whole way can turn into a pleasant adventure, a stroll in the zoo. I will go from one cage to another, from one animal to the next, and correct my desires until I leave the “animal kingdom” as a human being, Adam.

It’s all about the fuel that comes to me in a chain: from the Creator, through the Kabbalists, the teacher, and the friends. So I have to be incorporated in the group in order to be impressed by the friends and to accept what is important to them. It’s the teacher who is important to them, a person whom I actually don’t like, by whom I am repulsed, and to whom I find myself antipathetic. I automatically despise him and don’t see anything in him that I value.

But I understand that all this is presented to me that way intentionally, and so I use these means to examine myself according to the simple criterion: Do I want to listen to what the teacher says and fulfill it? To fulfill what he says not out of an “animal” commitment, but in order to reach the Creator who is behind him.
[100995]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar

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Question: You said in a lesson that you lack words. Does this mean that we don’t work as we should and don’t extract spiritual information from you?

Answer: It works exactly this way. When the lower one asks, he passes his unfulfilled desire, to which I receive an answer.

It is said that one learns from all his pupils: “I learned a lot from my teachers, more from the friends, and more than that from my students.” This happens thanks to a student’s questions, his prayer, MAN. The student passes his desire to the teacher, and the teacher gets such a desire which for himself he would never ask. This is how the general system is revealed: With each new question from each student, one more layer of the system is revealed, and then one more, etc.

Each pupil raises his prayer. This gives the teacher vessels that didn’t exist in him and never would have if he hadn’t connected with the students. Therefore, up to the moment that the pupil asked, the teacher did not know the answer. But the moment the pupil asked a question of him, the teacher receives new attainment. And this is called “learning from the pupils.”

Every day I come out of the lesson with new attainments because I feel your lack. But the students have to prepare themselves for the lesson, and often a sufficient lack, meaning a necessity, is not felt from you. Certainly, even without words I also feel in my students the need for spiritual revelation, and this helps me in advancement. However, it’s desirable that everyone will utter their questions.

I am connected to my teacher, Rabash; he is my upper one. When I receive questions from the students, I connect them to one direct channel that comes from Above. This is a hierarchical, tree-like system that spreads from the top down. If I receive from the bottom a desire that I can raise, I process it inside me, get an answer to it from Above, process it again, and transfer the answer to the student. However, 99% of the information that was received stays inside me and only 1% passes to the student, in accordance with how much I have to scale myself down and descend to the student’s level so that he will receive this answer from me and understand it.

In a few cases, I myself awaken this connection because there is a general preparation. For example, people invested a lot of effort in order to come to the convention and prepare it. And then, even if questions are not asked, I can awaken the Light, thanks to the great amount of exertion that you invested, which can be worked with. But sometimes this is possible only thanks to the questions.

I will never accept the sleepiness. But a teacher is forbidden to arouse desire in the students because it does the opposite, it plugs the channels that come to them. The lack has to rise from the bottom up!
[100000]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/28/13, TES

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You have to humble yourself not before certain people but before the means for attaining the spiritual goal—the study, the teacher, the friends, and the group. It’s because these are not just people, but a system, and if you annul yourself before it you will enter your first spiritual state: Ibur (embryo). Of course, there has to be a different kind of annulment with regard to every means; with regard to the study, you should examine its essence and why it’s needed and what it is that you study.

The system is revealed to you in the image of the teacher and the friends. It is one upper system, which by its revelation to you depicts in you the images of Kabbalists throughout the generations and of the friends. It’s you that builds these images, and they are in you. It says, “Thou shall not make statues or images,” in the sense that you are forbidden to perceive them externally, that they exist outside your feeling. You are in front of the Light that depicts all these discernments in you.

So the work is in imagining only the Creator’s bestowal upon you instead of all these images. But in this general behavior of the Creator, you are allowed to discern all the individual manners with regard to which you can focus yourself.

It’s as if you are playing a chord on a musical instrument and you need several strings that are perfectly tuned relative to one another. In order to do that, you have a teacher, friends, this world, and the study. If you tune all the “strings” correctly by perceiving everything as coming from the Creator, you will be able to come to Him.

If you regard the teacher, the friends, the group, the study, and the world as coming from one upper source, then everything that you do to tighten the connection with them allows you to tune yourself more accurately. It’s as if you are checking every one of your strings according to the sound of this tuning fork and thus advance.
[99885]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How can I annul myself correctly before the teacher? As it is written, “The left rejects, and the right adducts.” I must build my middle line from these two systems, but how exactly: receiving something in parts or everything as a whole?

Answer: The middle line is the adaptation to the upper. It symbolizes that I receive everything that comes from my teacher as much as I can. In general, a “teacher” is called a guide on the spiritual path. I must receive what I hear from him spiritually, instead of rationally. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be a teacher.

On his part, he wants to prepare you with his explanations about leading an independent life.

However, in order to receive from him all the discernments, all the preparations, all the instructions, and the guidance, I must annul myself before his teaching, before his path, before all that relates to the system. In order to realize the system, I need a group. The “head”—which means the idea, the teacher’s plan—resides in the group, and I enter it and am “swallowed” in it. Then, when I am in the group, we all advance according to the teacher’s guidance as he leads us and “pulls” us, the group and me in it, after him.
[99119]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The usual claim students have regarding the teacher is that he doesn’t give them enough attention, which they feel that they deserve. But the matter is the lack of vessels on the part of the students, as a result of which they cannot absorb more and so they don’t feel that they receive even more than they need, but on the other hand, they cannot manage to wake up by themselves.

The teacher should not come to wake up the students. It won’t help, since they receive the awakening from Above. I go to a place where people are awake and ready, and then I can help them organize and connect more strongly. But first they have to make their own efforts.

A student doesn’t understand that he doesn’t have the vessel to receive what the teacher gives him. You don’t have to wait for me to come and wake you up. It is impossible to wake it up that way if you haven’t prepared a deficiency in advance. The moment you are ready for that, of course I will come.
[98840]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/27/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Starting now and going forward, we need to advance independently. And here a very interesting point is revealed. Up to a certain moment, I felt that I was completely influencing my students. During that time I taught my students according to the same system that our spiritual fathers learned.

But lately it is revealed that without support, without connection, without general mutual work, I can no longer teach them. For this, the students’ efforts, their assistance, and mutual work are required. All of this is essential. If from their side, there is a desire, a deficiency, then I can speak and explain in an approachable way. If there is an effort, then accordingly we can advance forward. This means that here an exact process of correction is taking place. We have arrived at this point.

It turns out that we are dependent on each other. Thus I turn to the entire world group since I am not able to do anything alone. If in the past I pushed you and could do something, now everything is closed. The general desire transforms into being truly mutual, and unity and connection are revealed in it.

This is not yet our attainment since in the meantime everything is taking place without any connection to our desire. But we must understand that it’s only through the general mutual effort, both yours and mine, that we will be able to advance forward. There will appear before us new opportunities to express our ideas, new explanations, and although the system remains the same since everything comes from the Light and the Kli, a new form of submission and recognition will appear, its sensation.

Thus, I very much request for you to be more active, to participate more in everything, to connect to the lessons. The general advancement depends only on our mutual actions! Let’s solve this problem together since acts of correction are possible only through our efforts that are aimed at taking charge of our ego and rising above it through an opposite attribute. If there is no effort, then there is no correction.

Under no circumstances should one annul the ego. We must rise above it. Suppressing the ego means not allowing it to command us, but together with it to feel it, live with it, and rise above it in our actions. This work must be aimed only at my worldwide group and at the Creator.
[98080]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/9/12, Lesson 5

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Question: Is there a difference between the impact of the teacher on a person and the impact of friends on him?

Answer: I do not particularly show my care for you. Of course, I influence students, and there is nothing you can do about it; this is my duty and I try to realize it. In this respect, I am not an example because my concern for you is of another type; it’s invisible. And what you see is not the main thing. Only friends can help each other to ascend and to forget about yourself.
[97260]
From the Virtual Lesson 12/30/12

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Question: What does it mean to be impressed by the Creator?

Answer: To be impressed by the greatness of the Creator means to be impressed by His creation since we are not able to grasp Him Himself. It is “from Your actions we will know You.”

You are impressed by everything that you discover within you and surrounding you, in all of reality, that in the meantime you don’t connect to yourself and don’t feel that it is you yourself. You are shown only your inner world in a kind of external mirror so that you will study it better. We need to thank the Creator that He gives us the opportunity to see our inner pictures from the outside, and in this way can learn to know ourselves.

If you don’t connect together with the friends, the teacher, and the Creator, then, for certain, you are degrading them. It occurs automatically. If the importance of the Rav, the group, each of the friends, and the Creator aren’t completely equal for you, as something above you, given to you so that you understand yourself and the reality in which you exist, then it turns out that you degrade them.

You can’t just value the Creator. It isn’t the Creator if you don’t connect Him to the teacher, the group, the studies, and to all the components of this concept, the “Creator.” The main thing is to connect all the factors together; otherwise, it is impossible to talk about anything that is real and concrete.

“There is none else beside Him” signifies that all the rest, except for the single point inside me through which I am able to research the reality, is the Creator. And “the point of breakage” of mine that is separated from me was given to me so that by using this breakage, this special act of the Creator, I will get to know myself and Him.

We are both separated by the attribute of severance, purposefully created by the Creator. And only this one point doesn’t belong to the Creator, so that I will invert it into a point of adhesion.

And when I begin to work on this point of separation between us, it suddenly turns into five worlds, a black abyss that I constantly try to skip over. To skip, means to connect above this abyss that separates between us.
[96988]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/31/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: What must the world groups do in order to constantly strengthen?

Answer: Personally, I feel that we must work together so that not only I, as a teacher, will nurture you with “drops of wisdom,” but also you, as students, will participate actively in our general learning process. Since without your exact and correct desire, forcing me to speak, I cannot say anything, I cannot do anything. We have now arrived at such a mutual, integral act.

For me, it is really a surprise. I didn’t think it would be revealed so suddenly and in such a sharp manner. I am very happy about this. But this mutual cooperation puts additional responsibilities on us, confirming once again the need for the relevant condition that I actually be at a level equal with you. There is the concept of a teacher-friend. Rabash also spoke about this. Thus, we need to participate together more frequently in all the events.

The friends must be equal. That is our mutual work, and here I constitute your senior friend and not your Rav. This is where the general integrality leads us.

Question: Does that mean that we need to be more self-reliant?

Answer: Of course! I constantly talk about that. After all, I am not eternal. And you will be left alone. But so that you won’t be left alone, you need to learn to act and advance forward independently. For this you have a method, a working system, tens of thousands of recorded hours in the archive, and books. There is everything! And I need now to slowly descend from the level of Rav to the level of friend, and then all of us together will discover the upper world.
[96362]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/9/12, Lesson 6

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