Entries in the 'Spiritual Work' Category

Scrutiny Of The Heart

Laitman_509M. Weisman, “Midrash Sefer,” Chapter 96: The smoke from the fire that was lighted by the priests rose to the alter in the form of a vertical pillar and there was no wind that could sway it.

The rising of the smoke (Auchan) is the rising of a person’s hopes to the Creator. The smoke refers to the spiritual concept of world, year, and soul (Olam, Shana, Nefesh). A person unites all the actions inside him and performs a complete correction of the crudest and lowliest desire that includes all the desires that are above it.

Then smoke rises as a result of these actions and unites the world (Olam), year (Shana), and soul (Nefesh).

It is by this action that a person’s most concealed devious, egoistic desires are clarified, which a person previously concealed in his subconscious and now brings them out in order to be corrected. Their scrutiny is according to the result of their burning, according to the smoke.

If the smoke rises vertically, it means that the scrutiny has been done full heartedly and that a person’s intentions are clearly focused on bestowal. If it isn’t so, it means that we are not candid yet in the scrutiny of our egoistic desires and are still under certain external influences.

We mustn’t associate the descriptions of fire with our world and imagine any corporeal images. When we enter the story of the Torah, the corporeal description should be transformed correctly into an internal feeling.

Only then is it possible to be incorporated in the story and to start identifying with what is going on, to feel ourselves both as an object that performs these actions and as an object on which these actions are being performed.

It is then that a person begins to understand that the whole Torah is inside him and he performs it in order to unite with the actions that are described in the Torah. He reformats himself with the help of the Torah.

This means that a person performs a spiritual action; a person fulfills the instructions of turning his ego into the state of love and bestowal.

The inner force called Torah helps him perform the action on himself and then he resembles it. It enters him and begins to change all his desires and intentions, and as a result be becomes similar to the Torah.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/12/13

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Acting As If I Love

laitman_938_02Question: I don’t have any positive feelings towards the group and the friends since it is merely pretense, a lie! What should I do?

Answer: It certainly is pretense and a lie. After all we are all initially only in our nature of “to receive” and this is what determines our actions. There are people, especially politicians who can pretend and act as if they worry about others, but a person who cannot stand lies cannot act as if he is “good.” He expresses what he actually feels.

The wisdom of Kabbalah, however, doesn’t call it a lie but acting! You should act as someone who loves, and only with regard to the friends, and don’t lie to them but to yourself in order to reach the goal, in order to set an example so that the friends will also act as kind and loving before you. As a result, the habit of acting becomes second nature in both directions, despite the fictitious behavior because a person begins to draw the Returning Light.
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The Nation’s Servants

laitman_937According to The Book of Zohar everyone should reveal an action below. Therefore Aaron performed an action below, seven days of holiness during which he didn’t come out of the Tent of Meeting, and then he offered sacrifice on the eighth day in order to invoke the action from above by which general unity is revealed. Then all the worlds that the priest (Cohen) awakens receive the blessing, and the priest himself is filled by the wholeness as required.

It is about the need for Aaron’s bestowal (the complete attribute of bestowal) unto the people (the other attributes) just as unto a group, which by gathering, affects the force that is above it since Aaron cannot influence it.

He has to perform an action below in order to unite the people and then they influence the upper force. Then the upper force can influence Aaron even more so that he can unite the nation even more strongly and then they influence the upper force even more. This is a continuous cycle.

It turns out that Aaron and the nation depend on each other. The upper force responds to the request of the nation, to its call, to its prayer (the prayer of many).

Aaron can only be a teacher and raise the prayer of the nation upward, but the nation operates him. It is thanks to the nation that Aaron receives spiritual elevation and all the others ascend through him in their turn.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/18/13

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I Don’t Know, You Will Find This

laitman_525Question: Should it enter into us as axiom that the Creator is the characteristic of bestowal and love?

Answer: We cannot take this even as a hypothesis let alone an axiom, because with the help of an axiom, we solve precise physical problems.

I must accept and perceive Him specifically as not existing according to my characteristics and feelings. He doesn’t exist for me, because I don’t exist for Him. I don’t even have one characteristic in me that will be like Him so that through this characteristic I would be able to understand, feel, and determine precisely that this is Him.

He is not outside of me, this is a characteristic that is only within me, and so the Creator (Bore) is called, “Bo-Re” (come and see). In the Hebrew language all definitions are very precise because they are derived from the attainment of reality. All of the names are based upon practical actions. So the Creator indicates that when I will come and see, I will find Him.

Coming means gradually attaining the characteristic of bestowal. Then within that I will begin to feel the reality that is the Creator. Only by creating this within me can I determine what the Creator is. But if I don’t discover the characteristic of bestowal and love, this indicates that He doesn’t exist. And this is the relationship.

Question: Must an internal war happen inside of me for this?

Answer: No internal war happens inside of you, rather there is an internal investigation.

For if you have a desire to attain, to see, to determine, to feel, to be filled, with this knowledge, meaning that this need is alive inside of you, then according to the scent, according to your sixth sense, you will understand that there is something here for you, you cannot escape it, you must clarify everything and be infected with this.

But if you don’t have an inner drive like this, then you will only yawn and lie down on the couch again. It could be that you will want to satisfy your curiosity or will try to derive benefit from this: do some magic, experimentation, mysticism, and attract girls through interesting conversation. There were a few people who were with us who were only nourished by curiosity and being filled with knowledge. And they all left; they couldn’t hold on.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 12/18/13

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A Faucet That Is Opened With The Help Of The Power Of Connection

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: With the help of what does a person open and close the faucet so that the Light will flow?

Answer: The faucet is opened with the help of the group. The more I reach equivalence of form with the group, connect to it more, the more power I get, the more of a feeling of connection, and I understand what I must change in myself and how I must accommodate myself to the Creator. The Creator is the power of unity and connection. When He shuts off the faucet for me, He shuts off the power, but demands intelligence from me; He wants me to learn to do this by myself. He will give me the Light, but it is up to me to want to be like Him for His work.

The Creator shuts down my reasons, and it is up to me to activate the connection and not the reasons. The Creator plays with me with the help of plates full of food and I play at having a “personal relationship” with Him, trying to be like Him. He influences my “belly” and I influence Him through my personality, through the Adam (man) in me. I work with the help of the society and He influences my body. And that is how I grow by means of this game. This is exactly what the Creator wants, through His influence on my body he makes me into an Adam.

I stand facing the “Master of the House” and facing the plates of food that He is offering to me on the animate level. But I transform the situation into a personal, human relationship, on the level of Adam, on the level of the Creator. I utilize the Kelim of the desire to receive. That is why this reception is called the “wisdom of Kabbalah,” for with its help I can lift myself to the level of divinity.

I am satisfied on my animate level so that I can elevate my relationship above the deficiency that I feel within my belly. I play a bit with the help of the hunger and the appetite that I feel, try to honor the Creator instead of honoring the plate that He offers me. And in this way I raise myself to the spiritual level.

So when “Bina” refuses to receive, she becomes “Keter,” and after that “Malchut” which receives in order to bestow. And all of this is within one spark of Light that was created as “something from nothing,” a small black point. So everything that is needed for building the image of Adam is found in this world.

Until the end of development we will have a “heaviness of heart” not by means of high states but only in this way. But this will be enough for building all of the levels of the five worlds when faced by all situations.

The group opens the faucet through connection. The more I connect with the friends as “one person with one heart,” the more the faucet opens. And in order to push me to connect, the Creator turns off His faucet. So then I am in a “night,” which I must transform into “day.”

The Creator makes one condition for us; we receive or don’t receive within our desire to receive. Everything else is added through the greatness of the Creator that we must attain through the greatness of the group.

The Creator says that His suitcase that He lets us carry is very light. This means that there is no significance to physical pleasures and we build the entire spiritual ladder above them. Everything that is required to begin climbing the rungs of the ladder that is placed in front of us is in the group. And the situations that seem like darkness to us are opportunities, a call to begin to ascend. This is as it is with a child whom they stand on his feet so that he will begin to walk by himself.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Without Any Disturbance, We Do Not Need The Creator

laitman_239Question: What depends upon us?

Answer: Only the building of the right deficiency depends on us; whereas the Upper Light is found at absolute rest. Only to the degree of the power of the deficiency and its components is it possible to see the Light according to its intensity and quality.

According to how many discernments there are within the deficiency, we will see the simple Light, the Light of Nefesh—that is found in rest (Nefisha), without movement—or the Light of Ruach (wind) that already moves and is found in motion. After that, we discover the Ohr Neshama that already shows us the source that the Light comes from. We begin to see in it the desire of the Upper One that is ascribed to us.

After that, comes the Light of Haya that shows us how, with our strong, complex, and versatile desire, we also can enter into contact with the Upper Light and begin to work together with it.

Then comes the last Light, the Light of Yechida, when everything is united through mutual bestowal.

Question: What is the difference between the intensity of the Light and the quality of the Light?

Answer: Intensity and quality are two components of the intensity of the Light. Similar to this, in electricity, there is a power supply that is determined according to voltage times current. This determines how much you can produce from the power supply, in other words, the ability to operate and perform the required work.

The quantity and quality are connected together. In the Upper Light, there is no difference between quantity and quality. It is only in reference to the receivers. All of the substance of the still is equal in value to one vegetative. It follows that one vegetative is great in quality, in contrast to the entire nature of the still, which is great in quantity.

Question: So, what do we need to ask for?

Answer: We need to ask only for a deficiency. It is good that we now are receiving a deficiency during dissemination. There is nothing more valuable than that. Feeling ourselves obligated to the entire world is the best thing. This is the same deficiency in which we discover all of the reality, all of the phenomena of the Creator.

This deficiency will oblige us to feel how much we require the Creator. Up until today, we didn’t need the Creator, but, today, He has become a necessity for us, like air, and so, not for nothing is it written, “Come to Pharaoh!” for, without Pharaoh, we would not need the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/14

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Secret Language Of The Creator

laitman_423_02“There is none else beside Him” is the main and most important topic in the wisdom of Kabbalah and in the life of a person in general. First of all, it is the foundation for our entire outlook on life and the perception of reality since everything is derived from one force. It is up to us to know how to relate to what He portrays within us, how He has constructed us to feel as if we exist within bodies in an external reality, and how desires and thoughts are awakened in us at every moment so it seems to us that we exist and reality surrounds us.

But all in all this is an imaginary portrayal that doesn’t really exist; it only seems that way to us. Through the right attitude towards reality and ourselves, through everything that we feel within our senses, can we reach a true perception of the higher power. We discover that He exists and He actually determines and molds everything for us.

“There is none else beside Him,” means that everything that I feel comes from this Higher Power, which portrays this picture for me. It is up to me to relate to the entire reality that comes from Him.

I forget this at every moment, and at every moment is a new way to perceive a new reality as if I exist and the environment exists by itself, not derived from any outside source.

At every moment I must concentrate my perception, my inner sight, my inner feeling and thought, that in the end, all of this arises as a result of the influence of the upper force on me. There exists a particular point in me and this force portrays all the rest for me. Within that point I feel myself, and the world in which everything is turning and transforming.

I must say that everything that I feel as a disturbance that diverts me from the right perception comes from the Creator and “There is none else beside Him.” Only He creates this reality and confuses me at every moment. It is up to me to say that all of this is for my own good. Which is to say, all of the disturbances, the confusion, the disappointments, all of the pleasant and unpleasant things, everything that attracts or repels, everything that passes my way, He organizes for me very precisely so that according to all of these disturbances I will direct myself at every moment to the only source that arouses everything within me.

In this war between me and the Creator (who is always confusing me), I begin to relate to the world as if it exists on its own, for the various people who influence me and awaken various impressions in me and also that I am constantly changing myself. In all of this, it is up to me to see only Him.

In this way I clarify all of the Reshimot (remembrances), meaning the entire great performance that they display in front of me and in which I participate. If I persist, clarifying as successfully as possible, I seem to advance. But that is not true; I don’t advance that way.

It is logical that if I relate to the Creator like this, then I am found in a conflict, in opposition to Him; we are found one against the other. And this attitude is incorrect. After all, the Creator organized all of these states for me so that I would be constantly directed towards Him. I will err, I will be confused, and I won’t succeed in remaining directed towards Him and feeling that all of this imaginary reality exists on some screen between Him and me on which He portrays the world for me.

If a person constantly wants to locate the Creator behind this entire picture, he reaches absolute despair because he is unable to hold on to this. This despair is most helpful, targeted from the Creator. After all, the person then begins to feel that he needs help from above, because he is not able to be connected to that source, to that single cause that builds for him the reality around him at every moment. And so he breaks out with a request, with a prayer, with a cry, with resentment that he is constantly yearning to be in connection with the source, with the cause, with the Creator, for this escapes him. A request is formed in him, a correct demand that the Creator help him. It means that he stops the game, the competition against the Creator, whereas the Creator had given the person a perception of the world so that he will feel himself. And the person feels that this is the reality. He relates to it without connection to the cause that constructs it, which is the upper force. The person sees that he is detached from the Creator all the time and is found in a performance, in a picture of an imaginary reality.

If the person’s request approaches being an inner demand again and again, he begins to feel that he is having a dialogue with the Creator about reality, faced by disturbances, which he no longer sees as disturbances but help. Through this he builds himself so that he can understand and feel the Creator. He begins to learn the language, how the Creator is turning towards him through all of this reality and how he attributes all of this reality to the Creator and knows how to answer Him.

And then, from his complaint, his suit against the Creator, he reaches thanks. He begins to understand that this is how the Creator is developing, growing, and educating him. He is teaching him to understand the higher language, which doesn’t come through words or letters but through the surrounding world.

The whole world, all of the person’s feelings about himself and the world, all of his perception becomes a very rich language; for the entire world is showing the person how the Creator relates to him and how the person relates to the Creator in response.

The world becomes a screen on which, through various forms, colors, sounds, through all the distinctions in the perception of the world, the person begins to identify a very unique and hidden code. As a result of this he begins to feel and understand the Creator.

Instead of the claims against the Creator that he has no control over the world and he cannot identify the source, the upper force, the unique cause, he begins to thank the Creator for everything that happens. About this it is said, “The entire world is worthwhile for him.” That is how the person advances.

The question that begins to be clarified is, “Why did the Creator make all of this?” To the degree that the person is ready to thank the Creator, to identify with Him, to be detached from himself, as if he didn’t exist at all, but he is ready to penetrate into the picture that the Creator presents to him and to identify with the upper force, he truly begins to feel by way of this language, which is the whole world, that he is adhered to the Creator and advances together with him by means of those same steps, the changes, the colored forms, the sounds, the feelings, and the thoughts.

The person identifies with the Creator and changes himself so much that he begins to advance together with the Creator with the same movement. And not only does he receive impressions from the Creator, but he tries to react, to adhere to that form, to that world, and to that picture. He doesn’t go after the Creator like a little child, but both of them begin to work with the same form, at the same rate. And then this world disappears.

For the world is a result of the difference between the influence of the Creator on the person and the reaction of the person in regard to that. But if they begin to be alike, to move at the same rate, with every step and with every stride without any difference between the deed that the Creator initiates and the deed that the person finishes, but everything happens together, then the form of the world, the picture of the world, disappears (“Olam” [world] from the word “Halam” [hidden]). Then the person and the Creator connect. This state is called “adhesion.” That is what we must reach.
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From the Convention In France “One For All And All For One,” Day Two 5/10/14, Lesson 2

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In The Covert Of The Most High

Laitman_119Psalms 91:1 – 91:4, 91:11: He who dwells in the covert of the Most High will lodge in the shadow of the Almighty. I shall say of the Lord [that He is] my shelter and my fortress, my God in Whom I trust. For He will save you from the snare that traps from the devastating pestilence. With His wind He will cover you, and under His wings you will take refuge; His truth is an encompassing shield. For He will command His angels on your behalf to guard you in all your ways.

The person who is found “in the covert of the Most High,” meaning that he feels the concealment that approaches him and must be careful not to fall into double concealment. In regular concealment a person understands that the concealment comes from the Creator, and in the double concealment, he already forgets that it is sent to him by the Creator and he succumbs to despair and discouragement.

Only mutual Arvut in a group and a rigid schedule can save him from regular concealment, that is something that works on the level of the still: the connection with the group and the rigid schedule. And besides this, it could be that they will have mercy on him from above and will give him awakening. But the main thing is how he prepares himself for these states from the start. It is impossible to rely on miracles and a special relationship; rather, he must constantly think about how not to depart from the process of advancement.

If a person is found a bit above double concealment, meaning in regular concealment, he must understand that he is “In the Covert of the Most High,” meaning that both the concealment and its form are sent from above. Everything, down to the last smallest detail, is arranged according to the relationship between the Light and the Kli that are optimally arranged for the person’s purposeful advancement.

So he must be thankful for this concealment. It is clear that he has no elevation, no power, nothing illuminates him or draws him forward, and nothing pushes him forward. Yet together with the absence of the power that attracts and pushes, in spite of the lack of energy that he has in general, he must draw conclusions in order to clarify his desire: How much is he ready or not ready to overcome?

He must analyze his life when he is awakened and illuminated from above and his life is in concealment.

What is the difference between this and that? How much does his system depend upon the awakening from above? Can he attain it through awakening by the group? After all, it is said: “They helped every one his neighbor” (Isaiah 41:6), “The envy of the scribes increases wisdom” (Baba Batra 22a),”Envy, lust, and honor take a person out of the world” (Pirkei Avot 4:28), meaning, from the bad state in which he is found to the good state.

It is impossible to submit to states where you are in a shadow, in concealment, “In the covert of the Most High”; rather, it is necessary to try to find signs of the work in them. As with the piano, where there are white keys – major, and black – minor, and it is impossible to play without the black, they are required.

Even though spices are only an addition to food, it is impossible to do without them as then the food would lack taste. So in darkness there are many discernments and it is necessary to prepare for it well. It is said: “Don’t be afraid of the dark night,” for if you use the states of darkness correctly, then only with them can you discover the courage, your good preparation, stability, and proper organization.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/18/14

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Living On The Borderline Between Light And Darkness

laitman_207Because we don’t feel any connection to the upper force yet, its control over us and governance, we don’t feel any need or yearning to turn to it with a request and all the more so with thankfulness. Our desire to receive may allow us to ask but to be thankful is something that we certainly forget.

We can be thankful when the gratitude promises us some reward for our ego and it reminds us about it. Many in the world do so. But in order to be grateful, we have to advance to conditions that are not beneficial for our ego but to our spiritual advancement, and there is a need for a lot of preparation in order to do so. This is why it doesn’t really work.

We should not think that the feeling of gratitude stems from a good feeling. Gratitude is a result of the recognition that the Creator leads me through the dark and helps me struggle and win, finding all my impure desires (Klipot) and rising above them.

A prayer of gratitude is born in this state, above the darkness, the evil, and the great unpleasant corrections of my ego. To the extent that I can ascend above my desire to receive and attribute myself to bestowal, to the soul instead of the body, to the force of bestowal instead of the force of receiving, to raise myself above the earth, I can be grateful.

All this happens simultaneously: I feel the darkness in the desire to receive and above the darkness I feel the Light in my desire to bestow. One cannot exist without the other.

Therefore, we have to gradually reach this combination internally, when you have a desire to bestow, an unpleasant feeling in it, darkness, and above it restriction, a Masach (screen), and the Returning Light above the Masach. This is how we establish the attitude towards the Creator called faith above reason.

Reason is what we feel inside the desire to receive. There is nothing in it but disappointments and thoughts against the spiritual path, but we ascend above them and despite all the evil according to our corporeal mind and feelings we establish our attitude above the darkness.

Thus we arrive at the right form and establish the middle line between the two lines that negate one another. They try to erase each other until the third partner arrives and makes peace between them.

We have to try to agree to this kind of work more and to stick to it. It is very important. Then we arrive at a solution, which is the right structure when the desire to receive below is felt as darkness. After all, Egypt, Pharaoh, and Haman are all inside me. The shell stands against holiness and the soul is between them.

When I see my state this way I begin to work on the structure of my soul and to put it together and shape its form.

We have to clarify all the stages, to be more sensitive to what happens inside us, to keep the darkness, the Light that is above it, and the relationship between them. We have to live in this conflict and not simply fall because I feel bad and don’t see anything, or start floating in the clouds like a hot air balloon the moment I feel good.

I have to keep these two states and to understand that this is how I feel my desire to receive, the shattering, above which I have to gradually establish my love and concern for others by adding a new attitude each time that is correct and continuous and aimed at bestowal. It is through these states that I establish my attitude towards the general force of bestowal called the Creator and reach the feeling of gratitude to the extent that I can keep myself above the darkness thanks to it.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/14

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Add To Our Years From Generation To Generation

laitman_571_02Psalms 61:1- 61:7: For the Leader; with string-music. [A Psalm] of David. Hearken, O God, to my request, listen to my prayer. From the end of the earth I call out to You when my heart becomes faint; on the rock that is higher than I, You lead me. For You were a shelter for me, a tower of strength in the face of the enemy. I will dwell in Your Tent to eternity; I will take shelter in the in the covert of Your wings forever. For You, God, have hearkened to my vows; You have given the heritage of those who fear Your name. Add days to the days of the king, his years as every generation.

The struggle is for unity of man so that a person will understand that all of his feelings come directly from the Creator, and this is even though everything that is happening is in concealment and the opposite of what would be expected from the good that does good. However, it seems to be the opposite because it is perceived through the opposite desires of a person who has not yet undergone correction.

This shows a person where he needs to correct himself to feel that the Creator is good and benevolent, even to the wicked, until, for him, everything is integrated into a single source. All expressions and manifestations of evil—encountering enemies, the wicked, all of these things—happen at the “end of the earth (Haaretz),” in other words, at the extremities of desires that are still uncorrected.

He must try to turn from there to the Creator, in other words, specifically to connect with the Creator from those desires at the ends of the earth, for, as it is written, “There is none else besides Him.” He does this until he attains full adhesion in the given situation and prepares himself for the next state, and that is what happens until the completion of correction.

If a person thinks about the present and prepares himself for the future, he is in a prayer, a request, thanking the Creator, which is to say that he always expresses his desire to connect with Him, to be in adhesion, and that is how he succeeds. The Creator lengthens his days and years from generation to generation.

In the beginning, it seems to a person that he has haters, enemies. He must struggle and defend himself against them, and indeed there are circumstances where we need to go to war.

However, after the person attributes everything to the Creator, no enemies and haters remain for him, in other words, that there is no other control than that of the Creator. Everything comes only from the Creator, either from His front or His backside, which shows a person that he must build two types of relationships and differentiate between the power of bestowal that comes from above and the power of reception that comes from below, from the person. That is how he can see that his true enemy is found inside of him.

When this enemy is awakened and rises up against him, it seems to a person that the Creator has gone away from him and disappeared. However, when the person attributes all of this to the Creator, then for him there is no difference between darkness and Light. He no longer depends on his mood and doesn’t attribute what is happening to all kinds of other forces or to himself. He understands that he has no control either. Rather, everything comes from the Creator.

The moment that a person directs himself in this way, he sees that even before then he was in a revised, balanced and correct state, and never left the sacred. However, he attained this only now, and the entire difference is in that.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/19/14

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