Humanity has believed that there is life after death for ages, but in fact the next world is the next level. On the whole, there are five worlds: Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. Each of them is divided into five Partzufim and in each Partzuf there are five Sefirot. They make a total of 125 levels and each one is also called a world. It’s a about a certain “place” in my desire to receive that has certain attributes.

Eventually I am stabilized; I am in my current state, and then I feel and understand, perceive, and live according to the definitions, the values, the perceptions and method of clarification that are typical of the current level. This level is my world, “this world.” Everyone is on this level, including the greatest Kabbalists who are also on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature of their existence.

This state is given to us from the start. No one asks me whether I want to be born here.

But I can add the next level called the next world to the current state. It says: “You shall see your world during your lifetime.” This means that I have to attain it here and not after death. This is why the wisdom of Kabbalah is called “the revelation of the Creator to the created being in this world.” I can discover the Creator on the level of this world. The revelation of the Creator is called discovering another level of the 125 levels. This is how I attain it, starting from the smallest measure until the fullest measure.

The next world will be revealed if I form the image of the force of bestowal out of the items that I have prepared. Then I will acquire new feelings and a new perception in that image, in my new desire to bestow. This will be my next world, one of the 125 levels.
[122326]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/5/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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There is a constant struggle between the importance of the goal and our feelings. If the goal is important, it makes no difference what states we go through along the way. It’s like a patient waiting for an operation knowing that although the treatment is unpleasant it is meant to save his life.

We should also understand that the Creator sends us more and more disappointments, darkness, feelings of helplessness, and unpleasant states on purpose. We, on the other hand, have to keep on increasing the importance of the goal so that the goal will be more important for us than the current state and what we feel. It’s a sign that the Creator “hardens Pharaoh’s heart,” and sends us more troubles.

It makes no difference how clever a person is and whether he is sensitive or not; everyone must go through this and hold on to faith and to the general power of bestowal he receives from the environment. Then you will not lose direction and the importance of the goal in states of  the”hardening of the heart.” This actually depends only on the balance between the forces that operate on a person. It can all be measured. If the goal was important for you and you dedicated yourself to the group in order to receive the support you need now, the Creator can harden your heart even more, and you can thus shorten the way and you advance along the path of “I shall hasten it” (Achishena), towards the goal.

The path of the Light, “I shall hasten it,” is not feeling constant troubles; of course, the path of “I shall hasten it” means that the importance of the goal helps you climb every summit and fall into every pit and still come out of all these hard states. It’s because you are constantly looking ahead at the importance of the goal. So, no matter what knocks you off your feet, whether it lowers you or raises you upwards, you keep on advancing consistently like a baby crawling on all fours.

We must understand that we have to reach the hardening of the heart that will fill our measure to the fullest and at the same time allow us to struggle and keep our connection so that it will illuminate for us and keep us from getting off track and letting go. We will be more aware of how essential the Light that Reforms is time and time again. We thank the Creator for the sufferings He brings us because it’s thanks to them that we need Him. We understand that we can turn to the Creator only together by connecting and by the prayer of many.

If we know how to fulfill our mission, then the work we have to do doesn’t seem difficult at all and is actually pleasant. Although it requires our constant overcoming, it becomes a sport. We enjoy the efforts that we make if we see a clear goal before us. Thus we advance speedily.

So there are two conditions that help us not to give up the hardest work there is: being incorporated in the group and thanks to this reaching the recognition of the importance of the goal. If we fulfill all that, we will feel grateful to the Creator and reach a prayer in response to which there will come such a measure of the Light that Reforms that it will raise us to the first spiritual level, to the world of Assiya.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/3/13

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Connection is the condition in which there is nothing related to you or to me, rather it is only “ours.” In this connection it is impossible to distinguish anything that belongs to either party. It no longer exists. It is as if they pour dye into water and they mix.

And this is not a precise example, for there still remain molecules of water and dye.

Whereas, here it turns out there is something with no recollection of the previous components and division. Something completely new is created.

Even in an infant we distinguish the different facial features which he inherited from the father or mother. The same thing happens at the time of the descent of the worlds from above to below. Part reaches the Zeir Anpin from Abba and part from Ima. But after that, when we begin to pass from below to above, then everything is united in the Creator.

There is an action or intermediate state through which we reach unification. And unification indicates that there is only one, the two sides disappear. In our world unification like this doesn’t exist, for today a couple is connected and tomorrow there may be a divorce.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/13, The Zohar

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Question: How can we connect through the Creator?

Answer: Very simply. Due to powerlessness in the face of the fact that we are not able to unite, we turn to the Surrounding Light, the Creator, and ask Him to unite us. This occurs at every degree. After we discover our inability to unite, we come to the “gate of tears,” cry, and receive the force to connect, merge together.

But how does the Creator glue us if we are different? We become glued together only according to our intentions to connect to the Creator if we want to bestow only to Him. He becomes our connecting link, our goal. This is like parents who unite in one child. They might even hate each other but connect through him, taking care of him together.

But in this child, they are reconciled but hate each other. However, they love him and that is why they connect in him, in this point. This is the union of opposites. We are all opposite in a thousand different properties and directions. No person is the same. So, what can we do with our desire to enjoy? We cannot kill it; we can do nothing with it. We are only given the opportunity to perform actions that lead to unity.

We need to connect two parts that have nothing in common except the animal basis. That is why there is this world in which we can connect on the physical level just by “holding hands.” But we express our feeling by this gesture. Therefore this degree is separated from all the other degrees, from all the states, because it allows us to begin to ascend. In this world, we can slap the other person in the face or kiss him and thus affect their desire. It is possible to kiss on request, and the desire can be changed due to his desire to kiss.

I just hug someone without feeling any sympathy for him, and even feeling rejection, but due to these actions, my desire gradually changes. This is the uniqueness of this world in which it is possible to affect one’s desire by physical actions. But all this happens at a certain degree and only as a preparation. And that is why it is not considered a spiritual connection.

But if we talk about spiritual desires that are higher than the degree of this world, then there we use material desires that in no way intersect with someone else’s desires. If we want to unite, then the Creator must be between us. Only through Him, through our root, we connect, like two brothers connect through a common mother. That is why they are called brothers.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/13, The Zohar

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Question: Spiritual work must be intense and incessant. So why does the Hanukkah symbolize a “rest-stop” on the way, from the words, “Hanu” a “rest-stop here”?

Answer: Truly in spirituality there is no parking in the full sense of the word.

The idea is that in this stage we need to finish the work on all ten Sefirot and go on to correction according to the method of “reception for the sake of bestowal.” Therefore there is a “rest-stop” here for we need to stock up on the resources, new vessels, in our war for correction. Essentially, this is talking about a new method.

First we successfully introduced vessels from the worlds of Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya into the world of Atzilut. With this we pass through the appropriate levels in the same order: zero plus the first, second, and third. In other words, we stabilize ourselves in the levels of still, vegetative, and animate.

And after this we work in the world of Atzilut in order to draw these Lights below, to the worlds of Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. And this is the fourth level, using the receptive vessels in order to bestow.

And after this, the completion of correction is reached by way of the descent to these worlds.

Therefore “Hanukkah” symbolizes the transition to work with a completely different characteristic: If previously we rose to the world of Atzilut in Galgalta ve Eynaim and vessels of “AHP on the rise,” so now we descend to the depths in order to finish the work. Here what is required is a transition to a completely different approach, a different style of work, and therefore this stage is called a rest-stop.

Accordingly, the Lights before Hanukkah and after it, the former being Neshama and the latter being Chaya, are opposite Lights. For in work in Hafetz Hesed I don’t want to get anything, and in reception for the sake of bestowal I work with those vessels, those desires, which I formerly restricted completely, I didn’t activate them.
[122140]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/2/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can we understand that there are different forms of connections between us? How can the connection between us change?

Answer: Imagine that you suddenly discover that the person sitting next to you, whom you hardly know and whose name you don’t even remember, is your brother. Your mother sends you a letter saying: “I have seen the two of you sitting together and I am overwhelmed. How can it be that my two sons have suddenly met! I had no idea what had become of him. He was kidnapped when he was a small child and here he is all of a sudden right next to you, what joy!”

You suddenly discover that you are brothers and your relations totally change. This is what we try to understand. You suddenly discover that the other is not just next to you but inside you and it has nothing to do with blood ties or that you have the same mother or father, but it is directly because of you. Adhesion is the state when another person becomes more important to you than yourself. If the part called the other is separated from you, you die. So you cannot agree to that! Your life is worthless without connection.

This is the only thing the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about: about the lack of connection and about connecting. There is nothing but that. We have a desire to receive, which we do not understand, and we learn about it by the Light that fills it from the shattering to correction, which means by connection. There are no other actions but that. If we speak about the perception of colors, music, or sounds, we only feel them as movement: either distant or close to one another.

We don’t feel those who are distant or near, we don’t attain the essence, we only feel the change. Every instrument is built according to this principle. We can resemble one another in different attributes, on different levels, in different manners. We don’t know the essence of the desire to receive, which is something from nothing. What is more, we don’t know what a desire to bestow is, something from something. We exist in a state of changing relations between us, and this is the only thing we perceive.

If the desire to receive and the desire to bestow were not moving mutually one towards the other, then we wouldn’t feel anything in our desire to receive and would cease to exist. Everything depends on the changes in our relationships, whether we feel greater love or lesser love. This is what we actually feel. We are not in the actual attributes of the desire to receive and the desire to bestow but in a derivative that determines the change in our relationship. This means that by perceiving only the changes, we don’t measure the speed but rather the acceleration.

If we move in a constant speed, we don’t feel anything and it is as if we stand in the same place (according to the principle of relativity in mechanics). Only if there is a change in velocity, which means that we accelerate, do we begin to feel it. It turns out that we live in this derivative and that we will never know the real essence, the something from nothing and the something from something, because we are the outcome of the meeting between the two.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/13, The Zohar

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Question: What is the connection between my constant yearning to return to the center of the group and the war to see the true picture of reality?

Answer: The war is specifically made about this. If you wake up in the morning and see that you need to direct yourself towards the center of the group, this says that you are on the right path. If time after time you catch yourself unconsciously departing from this state and bring yourself back, this is a sign you are going in the right direction.

Question: What picture and what feeling appear in the center of the group?

Answer: In the center of the group the feeling appears that there is nobody; there is only one desire, not many, in which all of reality is felt.

And then you discover that today’s reality is not true, but only a simulation like on a computer screen. To the degree that your vision is corrected, you begin to see that there is nothing true in this world, there are no real forces. This is like a distorted copy of the spiritual world that shows us what we have ruined and points us in the right direction so that we can eventually enter the true world.

It is as if there is a life that you don’t see, but they show you a performance about it in a theater. And in this presentation you discover how much your view was mistaken and how you can correct yourself in order to see the true life.
[122050]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/01/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What can a person do if he is constantly distracted by strange thoughts and cannot concentrate while reading The Zohar?

Answer: A person should try to live with the states we read about. This is called “wanting to know what one studies,” which means to connect to the material and to attain it. Knowledge means connection.

It doesn’t matter what we study, whether it’s “round and straight vessels (Igulim and Yosher) ” or “midnight when the violin of David plays,” when we read a certain article we should want to be in the same state the Kabbalists speak about. We should identify with what we read, and feel it. It’s as if a friend is telling you about his life and you really want to understand him and to share his feelings by absorbing his words in order to reach his feelings through them. Through the words you can reach the inner impression and share the same feelings.

This is what we need to feel when we read. So it turns out that we develop the habit that allows us to penetrate the Kabbalistic text the moment we hear it and we can immediately penetrate it, as if jumping into water. The Torah is water, Hassadim. Once we are in the water, we begin to activate all our senses by clarifying what is going on. It’s as if we are in a sea trying to look around, to feel the atmosphere, and to understand the situation.

It becomes a habit: The moment I hear the words of the Torah, I immediately enter the Light, the water, and try to understand what is going on there. It’s as if I enter a dark room or dark water in which I can see nothing. Then it’s very important for me to understand what is happening; it’s a habit that we should develop with regard to the Torah.

If I actually implement this approach, I will always be searching, expecting that this state will influence me now and be revealed to me. The state will be revealed because it did not exist and then it suddenly appears. It already exists, but I can’t see it or identify it yet. When I change internally, the state will be revealed. There is no revelation that is external to me but only internal. A new sense awakens in me and then I reveal it.

A person should constantly expect this, especially during the lesson. It says: “It would be good to pray the whole day,” but at least, it’s necessary to turn every lesson into a prayer.
[122137]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/13, The Zohar

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Question: How can an integral group remain in a state of excitement to convey a feeling of unity during an event?

Answer: The easiest way to keep in a state of excitement is during the time of preparing the event, for I and my friends want everything to go successfully. We think about this all the time, are concerned about how we can bring out the energy of inner unity and our integrality from within the group and convey it to the audience that is in front of us.

Therefore during all kinds of activities, workshops, lectures, talks, and games problems like this don’t need to pop up because we ourselves have a real need for this to succeed. We mobilize all of our yearning, all of the integral forces for attaining the goal; we must succeed.

If you feel this, then when you go out to a dissemination activity, you ask for support from the group an additional time so that it won’t forget you, and you try to attract that same warmth that you feel in the group to yourself at the time of connections like these. The need will appear within you when after the morning lessons the group gathers in a circle for at least ten minutes and recreates the wonderful power of unity, and you will grasp it and pass it on.
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From the Talk About Groups and Dissemination 11/24/13

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Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of Kabbalah and Its Essence”: I am glad that I have been born in such a generation when it is permitted to disclose the wisdom of truth.

Adam was the first to reveal the essence of the general reality that we live in is a kind of a “bubble,” we feel this life only within ourselves, without any serious purpose. This lies above the aspects of “animal” existence that demands to be born, live, and die again and again.

We also add to this our fantasies about afterlife, a very bitter mistake on our part, a big mistake of humanity that expects something else from the current level. As a result, it’s difficult to describe all the limitations of man, all the confusion in which he is immersed.

Nevertheless, since Adam and onward, a part of humanity began to reveal the truth. And the truth is that it’s possible to open our current limited sensations together with the mind that is behind them. It’s possible to unlock the door leading outside of our world, which is “depicted” by the perception of the five senses. In addition to them, you can find five new spiritual senses, acting on the opposite force, driven not by egoism but by altruism.

However, it was revealed only to a small part of humanity. The process goes on and humanity is gradually getting closer to this discovery, to an understanding that everyone must rise to a higher spiritual level during his life here. This is how the teaching of Kabbalah defines its purpose: The revelation of the Creator to the created beings in this world.

The stages of human development progress slowly. As Baal HaSulam writes that they required billions of years to develop the universe, hundreds of thousand years to develop the “material human being,” and thousands of years to develop the “spiritual human being,” who originates from Adam. Five thousand seven hundred years have passed since his time until the moment when an opportunity emerged to explain what is happening to everyone and attract people to ascend to the degree of the Human Being (Adam), meaning similar (Domeh) to the Creator.

And that is why Baal HaSulam is very glad that from his time and onward it is allowed to disclose this knowledge. We have developed enough at the current level and can proceed with the development at the human degree.

A special moment has arrived, unprecedented in history. The process came from the world of Infinity through all the worlds, through the breaking and preliminary stages, and then through all the twists and turns in our world to finally come to this point.

We must realize the importance of the period in which we live, and even more, the importance of the awakening that each person received. This requires a responsible and serious approach from us. There is no more important moment in the history of all the worlds, and our world in particular.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/5/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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