Question: Is it possible to enter spirituality before the necessary correction and harm myself?

Answer: No. That is absolutely impossible! The spiritual world is protected by your own screen, so you will be unable to do it. It is like giving you a weight of 200 kilograms—you cannot lift it.

Spirituality is protected by a very simple thing: you yourself do not see, know or feel it, and when you get access to feel and work with it, it means that you already have a screen—an anti-egoistic force that helps you to direct your desire to bestowal and love.
[230743]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/18/18

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Question: The intentions of others are hidden from a person. Why is that? If everything were revealed, life would be easier.

Answer: Then you would be an animal. It is arranged precisely so that people would be able to change themselves by gradually revealing their own intentions, correcting them, and reaching proper connections.

Remark: I am confident that few will agree that people have only egoistic intentions. There are good people and bad people.

My Comment: That is according to your criteria. We are born as absolute egoists. If we evaluate ourselves that way in regard to the spiritual world, we will discover that we are completely corrupted creatures.

Question: Why is it hidden from a person that his or her intentions are egoistic?

Answer: If it were revealed, one would not be able to exist. We would eat ourselves alive. We need to correct ourselves gradually, to the extent that our negative qualities are revealed. We need to compare them to the positive qualities, disclose the various miasmas, problems, and illnesses between us, and treat them.

Question: If I feel the intentions of another person and thereby I realize my own egoistic intention, can that be considered an attainment?

Answer: To some extent, yes
[230161]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/25/18

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Question: Does it make a difference to the Creator as to how I bestow to Him, either, let’s say, through bestowing to my child or through an indigenous person living in South America?

Answer: The Creator is the general quality of bestowal and love, which covers all parts of inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human nature. He exists in all these states. The problem with our perception is that we cannot experience Him apart from all of creation.

In other words, this quality exists in all parts of creation, in our relationship to them, and in no way separate from them. You cannot separate the Creator from them and say, “Here is the Creator, and that is His materialization in people.”

Comment: Usually, a person thinking about the Creator imagines some kind of object, either begs or thanks Him without any connection to humanity.

Answer: The problem is that we cannot imagine the Creator apart from humanity, apart from people—only together. Behind each person, we need to see the Creator. Otherwise, we will not experience Him.

When you relate to people correctly, inside them you will find that unifying force called the “Creator.”

Question: If I try to do something kind for someone, does that mean that I want to do something kind for the Creator?

Answer: If you try to do something kind specifically for another, without somehow connecting it to your own self-image, then, in the other, you will discover the Creator.
[230898]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 3/18/18

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Everything is measured relative to a person. The way one evaluates one’s state is the state one is in. Wishing for something beyond what you already have is a luxury. After all, it turns out that you are dissatisfied with what you received from the Creator. This is a huge obstacle, standing in everyone’s way to perfection.

We are in a perfect state, at the end of correction, in the center of all the upper worlds, in the world of infinity. All changes happen only inside a person. Therefore, if one determines one’s state as perfect, then one already is on the spiritual ladder, in the spiritual state.

Therefore, everything depends only on us. We should not wait for something to come from above. We can ask only for our correction, but there are no changes to expect from above, from outside of us. I just need to determine in each and every state that I am in wholeness and want nothing for myself, but only to bestow everything I can outward. We need to aspire for such a state because that is the truth.
[231242]
From the Talk on the Subject “Faith above Reason” 8/3/18

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Question: Does knowledge we receive from Kabbalah devalue universal human values, such as children, life, self-sacrifice, etc.?

Answer: Yes. Kabbalah explains that in our world all the movements from one person toward another, toward oneself and even toward the Creator are completely egoistic. So what? Why should we remain in a rose-colored mist?

Question: Kabbalah states that there is one value in the world: attainment of the Creator. Is everything else substantially lower in value?

Answer: Of course, after all the Creator is the quality of bestowal and love.

Question: Is it possible to apply this quality to children, society, life, to all these values?

Answer: Partially. If through them you want to spread the quality of bestowal and love to everyone, then, in general, you attain the root of this quality, which is called the Creator. Through them you can express your attitude to the Creator.
[230872]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 03/18/2018

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Question: If attainment is always subjective, is there an absolute attainment that is objective and not just a temporary truth?

Answer: Any spiritual attainment, in principle, is already of something objective because it is built on the combination of different desires and objects. This objectivity is expressed by the level of attainment or the power of the Light that fills this level: Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, or Yechida.

Therefore, spiritual attainment, as a rule, is relatively objective. The absolutely objective spiritual step is the very last level—the level of complete attainment and complete correction.
[231110]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 8/4/18

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Concepts that are opposite in our perception exist in the world of Infinity in simple unity and connection. (Baal HaSulam, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 1 “Histaklut Pnimit”)

Question: What does it mean that opposite things are unified? Can you give an example from nature?

Answer: Einstein gave examples of dimensions emerging above time and space. For example, a grandfather and his distant descendant meet hundreds of years later. They both exist simultaneously, but with respect to our attainment it is experienced as past, present, and future.

Question: Does this mean that dinosaurs might be wandering around us and we just don’t see them?

Answer: Dinosaurs are not wandering somewhere; they are wandering within you (in the same way as before, by the way). There is nothing outside of us. We project everything that we perceive so that it seems outside of us and call it “our world.” We feel it only within ourselves. We do not perceive what is outside of us. It is as if some electrodes are connected to us and we imagine that we are somewhere talking with each other and seeing others as if on a screen.

The question thus arises: does this all just seem to exist or does it really exist? We cannot say, because we do not feel anything outside ourselves. Therefore, a person cannot claim objectively that something exists—he always perceives subjectively.

Everything that we reveal and study is purely subjective, including Kabbalah. We never attain the absolute picture. It will be revealed only after the general correction, when all of us unite and our small private sensors (Reshimot) will be united into one common sensor, our small private desires into one common desire that will result in absolute perception, eternal white Light. Then we will be able to talk about what really exists. This state is called Gmar Tikkun—Final Correction.

This is all in relation to us; there are no problems regarding the Creator since His properties include everything. We will be able to achieve this same state when our desire becomes fully integrated, including all the opposites in itself. This is considered loving your neighbor as yourself.

In other words, when I accept everything that exists in another person—all his unpleasant properties, states, thoughts—as my own, as the most precious, with love, then I will include the desires of all the people in the world and will be able to be objective, as all the opposites inside me will be united.

Question: Is it possible to say that both love and hatred will exist in me at the same time?

Answer: Of course. One will not annihilate the other because they will only support each other, so that between them I can feel the acuity of attainment. This is how it works.
[230593]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 4/8/18

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Question: What is the ladder of spiritual ascent? Is it possible to jump over its steps?

Answer: No, you cannot jump over the steps. With each degree, the desires constantly grow, forming a spiritual ladder. If we are immersed in these desires and begin to realize them more intensely, then we rise from step to step.

The steps are not really like a ladder, but more like a DNA spiral in which the spiritual genes (Reshimot) are concentrated.

They contain all the information about us, only not genetic, but spiritual—much more extensive, accurate, deep, and interrelated.

Spiritual information is the stage of a human development up to the level of the Creator.

When I connect with people in more and more serious relationships, then dependencies between us appear, explaining to me what is universal, supreme, good, absolute power, intelligence, and feelings. I feel them as one single whole. This is the spiritual level.
[230418]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/11/18

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Question: When we are on a spiritual level will we be able to understand each other without words?

Answer: In general, yes. Of course, it is possible to work with a shared screen without verbal communication. But not just yet.

Such communication can be not only between two people who are near each other, but also between those who are in different parts of the world and even in two different worlds—it doesn’t matter. What hinders our understanding of each other are the mechanical, minor limitations of our world.

Question: Why is it that when you suddenly experience some kind of sensation, it is usually impossible to express it with words even to oneself?

Answer: It means that you are not yet able to experience the spiritual impact within your reasoning mind and your heart equally.
[230641]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian, 4/1/18

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Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of The Kabbalah and Its Essence”: Indeed, there is a common opinion that the prime goal of religion and the Torah is only the cleansing of actions, that all that is desired concerns observing the physical Mitzvot (commandments), without any additions or anything that should result from it. Had that been so, those who say that studying the revealed and practical actions alone is sufficient would be right.

Yet, this is not the case. Our sages have already said, “Why should the Creator mind if one slaughters at the throat or at the back of the neck? After all, the Mitzvot were only given to cleanse people.” Thus, there is a purpose beyond the observance of the actions, and the actions are merely preparations for this purpose. Hence, clearly, if the actions are not arranged for the desired goal, it is as if nothing exists. And it is also written in The Zohar: “A Mitzva (commandment) without an aim is like a body without a soul.” Hence, the aim, too, should accompany the act.

The physical actions convey nothing on their own. Clearly a person can do them, but he may not be aware of with what motives. Then what? What is achieved by these actions?—That is what’s most important. It is called an intention.

Question: It is written in The Book of Zohar: “A commandment without an intention is like a body without a soul.” What does this mean?

Answer: If any physical action is performed without the correct intention of uniting for the purpose of revealing the Creator, then this action is dead, like a body without a soul.

Question: Baal HaSulam writes that there are only two laws or two commandments: reception and bestowal. It follows that there is an interaction in human society that consists of two actions: either I receive or bestow. They have to be properly balanced. How should we understand this? What does properly balanced mean?

Answer: It is quite easy to balance: bestowal for the sake of bestowal is the quality of Bina and reception for the sake of bestowal is the quality of Keter.

Question: How can we know how much to receive from society and how much to give to it?

Answer: Do it so that it would be solely for the benefit of the society, for the sake of bringing it to the similarity with the Creator.

Question: And who decides that?

Answer: You decide. You have to integrate yourself into society in order to absorb all of its desires and raise them to the Creator. You have to become an intermediary link, a channel of connection between the society and the Creator.

Question: Is it only possible when the Creator reveals Himself to a person?

Answer: How else can you interact with the society? Only in order to help it.
[230632]
From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/18/18

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