Question: Why don’t you say that the method of integral education and information is our higher level, where the entire world must become a group? And of course, in this case, we must descend from our spiritual height, find language suitable for the general public, adapt, and rewrite the Kabbalistic articles, to find common ground with the aspirations of the masses so that there will be a basis for union with the entire world, to combine their desires with us, and so we go out with broad dissemination of integral education and information?

People who have been with you for a long time are leaving the wisdom of Kabbalah—deleting their accounts, “We are not with you!”—because of integral education, because they are in the dark; they don’t understand what this is for. They cannot appreciate your idea, and it seems to them that you surround yourself with naïve people who dance in your presence to the sound of the music, and everything is good. (I wanted to upset everyone, but I haven’t succeeded).

Answer: It is difficult to explain to people who study the wisdom of Kabbalah (i.e., that have a desire and within it, a “point in the heart”) that the integral union of all of humanity is the correction of the shattering of Malchut (the correction of Adam, the only soul that was created), even though they are studying this through the system of worlds, and I explain this to my students throughout the world in every lesson!

The idea is that the person who is involved with the wisdom of Kabbalah must evolve to understand the method of correction. After all, through studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, he develops his point in the heart and only when it reaches a particular development will he understand that spiritual attainment, meaning, attainment within him of the characteristic of bestowal, takes place only according to the degree that he connects with a group, to its center, with its common characteristic of Arvut (guarantee), and this could take years of intensive study.

Then, when a person understands the need to unite with a group and he works on this, he will feel that he has no need or desire for connection, and if, in spite of it all he continues to study and to act within a group, the additional efforts will lead him to an understanding that he can get the aspiration to unite in a group in order to discover the Creator from an outer circle of people if he begins to attract them toward unity. Reaching this understanding also could take several years, and then he understands that he needs to study the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to work in a group and integral education in order to work with the world. It is possible to decrease this time only through blindly carrying out the instructions of the teacher. Yet, only particular individuals are prepared to do this.

Those people toward whom we turn are another matter. They only have a need to organize this life (the desires of this world without a point in the heart), and therefore, they can quickly and easily understand and accept the method of integral education and information.
[119005]

Related Material:
Top Priority: Integral Education
The Same Method But A Different Approach
The Relationship Between The Language Of Kabbalah And The Language Of Integral Education

Filed under: Group Work, Integral Upbringing, Q&A, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

We believe that we don’t get an immediate answer to our requests and our prayers, but it isn’t true, you do get an immediate response. You are in an integral system that is internally connected by billions of strings. So there is no way that you perform a certain action either in your thoughts, in your speech, or your actions that doesn’t affect the system. Every tiny change that you undergo internally shakes the whole system. It responds to each and every detail.

It is like one body that responds to every one of its cells, to every desire. You are connected to everyone and cannot perform one single action without shaking the system. Everyone begins to move thanks to you and you constantly change the system. The mechanical actions have a minimal influence on the system and speech also has very little effect. But your intention brings about enormous changes in the whole system, even right now when your intention isn’t exactly the right one but you still are trying to attain it. You are like a baby trying to advance.

We don’t see such an effect in the corporeal world, but in the spiritual world people who are just starting their spiritual work summon a real and powerful response of the whole system by their actions. According to your advancement, you gradually grow from a person who performs actions to a person who serves those who perform actions when you rise to the level of Bina, Hafetz Hesed, or even higher than that. You only serve the lower by helping them, but they are actually the ones who bring about the greatest changes in the system and it is certainly thanks to you.

The state of the upper, whether it is smallness or greatness, depends on the lower, on the MAN, on the prayer, that they raise. But it is they, the smallest ones, that raise MAN (a prayer), and in response to that, the whole system is shaken by responding to their efforts to be incorporated in the system in their understanding and feeling.
[119971]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/7/13

Related Material:
A Prayer That Reaches Heaven
I Am One With This World
From Each According To His Abilities, And Eternity To All

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Dissemination, Group Work, Prayer and Intention, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: What can help us become independent of the outcome of our work?

Answer: We should switch the corporeal outcome to a spiritual outcome. A spiritual outcome is to delight the Creator. Imagine that you want to delight someone, to please him, and to make him happy and this someone is the Creator.

In order to picture the Creator more accurately and to be less mistaken, you should imagine that you want to make all of reality happy: All the still, vegetative, animate nature, and people, you want to make feel good and you actually dissolve and disappear in them, dedicating yourself to them in every possible sense, from now till eternity, beyond time, motion, and place, in everything that you do.

In order to be more concrete, imagine that you are in a group and that you want and try to act this way with regard to the friends. You want to totally dedicate yourself to them, to be in them, and to disappear and be incorporated in them, but this has to be fulfilled in practice, which means that you should be ready to do anything in order to disappear in them. This means that everything disappears: the causes, the actions, the outcomes; everything is aimed at the friends.

Think about it and imagine this situation and check your conclusions and clarifications in practice by your actions. We have to clarify whether what we say isn’t just empty words and whether they penetrate your heart. This is examined only by one’s actions. If such an intention enables you to operate yourself, it means that your intention is right. But if you have to change your intention in order to operate yourself and to start doing something, then your intention isn’t serious enough yet, as it says “without a cover.”
[119969]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/7/13

Related Material:
I See The Goal Through The Group’s Periscope
A Little Bit Of Goodness With The Right Intention
From Each According To His Abilities, And Eternity To All

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Dissemination, Group Work, Spiritual Work - 2 Comments →

Question: What kind of influence do these events like conventions, where we try with all our power to attain greater unity, have over the actions of our friends in Israel or other friends who are now passing through difficult times?

Answer: All of us, really all of humanity, are linked together by billions of threads into one network. There are an infinite number of links that are measured not according to quantity but quality. Spirituality is measured by quality and not by quantity.

Our convention is built on mutual combination, understanding, and penetration, such that we can truly feel ourselves together. We want a single and warm whole to be created among us in which the upper force, the Upper Light will begin to be revealed; something that existed in a collective Kli before its shattering in the upper world. Therefore through our gathering in this congress, we are now providing a very great help to the Israeli group.

It is wonderful that this has happened because nobody would have planned for this. If I had known how hard we had to work on dissemination in Israel, I certainly wouldn’t have set the convention for this date.

But on the other hand, the Creator arranges everything for us in such a way that many people are ready to connect, to gather together, and this is a very great help. I am very pleased that this convention was arranged at this time when we are really smashing through the “iron wall” between Kabbalah and all of humanity. We are all participating in this!
[119961]
From the  Bulgaria Convention “Dawn Of A New World” Day One 11/01/13, Lesson 2

Related Material:
At The Forefront
There Is No Turning Back
The Convention Is Not For Me

Filed under: Conventions, Dissemination, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam writes that our main goal is to “blow up the iron wall” that separates the wisdom of Kabbalah and all of humanity because if we do not then humanity will continue to deteriorate.

I wrote many years ago that the crisis had arrived and something must be done, but nobody agreed with me. Then the crisis was revealed in full force and I continued to write that it would continue for years, decades, until humanity changes. But people thought conditions were improving, that the crisis was ending and that everything is already okay.

Humanity doesn’t understand what a desperate hopeless state it is in. It has no means of changing anything. It just moves along a predetermined path that is controlled by two forces: positive and negative.

Certainly people want to solve this mystery, but they cannot and do not know how to do this. After all, our world is underneath the “barrier” (Machsom), underneath the boundary that divides between the upper worlds and our world; now there is no force that could make it possible for a person to correct society, the family, politics, the economy, and the environment, nothing; rather, everything just deteriorates. Therefore, we who possess a very small amount of knowledge about this process and possess the ability of correction must bring this to the world.

The thing that obligates us is love of the other, which is the essential law of creation. It is not for our narrow and small artificial world within which we exist; rather, it is for all of the rest of the great world outside. This is why we are doing this.
[119879]
From the Bulgaria Convention “Dawn Of A New World” Day One 11/1/13, Lesson 2

Related Material:
The Purpose Of Kabbalah
Baal HaSulam’s Warning
The Iron Partition According To The Customer’s Order

Filed under: Conventions, Dissemination, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: How can a person give pleasure to the Creator at every moment?

Answer: If he thinks about this all the time.

Every activity that you perform in life: working, learning, eating, bathing, in bed, even not alone, it makes no difference where and how, all of your thoughts must be directed towards the Creator. For the entire plan of nature, all of its forces are directed towards this, in order to work with bestowal.

If you act in this way, then an absolutely new field of emotion begins to be revealed in front of you, a new world. You begin to see the management system that now seems concealed because we don’t behave correctly in it. We don’t see it. We can see it only if we yearn for it for the sake of bestowal, and then we discover how it operates.

There exists a law of equivalence of form that acts in all the worlds, including our world. If I want to discover something, I construct a sensor that corresponds to that phenomenon that I want to discover. It is the same thing even here; if I want to discover the system of forces that manage the world, I must be found with this characteristic, and then it is revealed to me.

Therefore I must be locked on this all the time, that all that I do now, all my thoughts, desires and actions are intended only to give pleasure to the Creator, to give Him satisfaction.

What is the intention to give pleasure to the Creator? I don’t want to confuse you, but there is no Creator and there is nobody to whom to give pleasure. Through directing my thoughts and desires I apparently calibrate myself, aiming towards feeling the true creation. But what is ultimately revealed in me is that force that activates and manages everything, and it is called the “Creator.” This force can only be discovered within me, the Kabbalistic intention creates within me the possibility of feeling another reality which is parallel to our reality. If our reality exists only within the egoistic power of reception which is developed according to a plan that doesn’t depend on us, to which we are absolutely subservient, then when I enter into another reality, the possibilities of absolute freedom appear to me.
[119876]
From the Bulgaria Convention “Dawn Of A New World” Day One 11/1/13, Lesson 2

Related Material:
Checking The Purity Of Intentions
Placing The Creator At The Service Of The Goal
How Can We Please The Creator?

Filed under: Conventions, Perception, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Our desire to receive was created on purpose with such special attributes, that it is prone to rest (in the sense that our ego understands the concept of rest). That is to say, that we want to receive pleasure, fulfillment, to find release, to relax. Thus any action that is against our desire to receive demands us to use force to make an effort in order to strength us in “awareness.”

Let’s suppose in a certain moment I forget my state, my work, because the desire to receive, my egoistic nature, aspires to rest. So how can I push myself, how can I check myself and return again to awareness in relation to the goal, according to adhesion to the Creator? The person himself is unable to do this, but only with the help of the society. This means through an external factor that can operate on him.

If I, on purpose, prepare and organize such an environment for myself, then it will move and inspire me. Without that, I have no possibility to promise that in the future I will be connected and aimed at the goal of creation each moment: the unity of “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator.”

This way is called the path of the Light, the path of accelerating time (Achishena). Through the strong support of the environment, I progress, constantly searching, like an old man who walks bent who constantly looks for what he lost, even before he lost it. I am constantly checking myself if I didn’t deviate from the correct direction of Israel, Torah, and the Creator as being one. Checking if I haven’t lowered the demands through which I appraise my loyalty to the goal of the Creator.

If I forget the goal, then only the environment can quickly return me to awareness and remind me of ascent. But if that doesn’t happen, then in any case the Creator helps me in sending me reminders and putting me back on the path, but already through means that are not so pleasant. I feel some sort of loss and absence, sorry for my actions or state of unpleasant events. The Creator reminds me by making me feel sorry that I lose out in my spiritual work or on some corporeal problem in my regular life.

The method of influence depends on that, on how far I distanced myself from the direction of the unity of Israel, the Torah, and the Creator. If I remain within certain limits that are close to the same path, and don’t deviate from the main road, then the society brings me back in the right direction. But if I forgot the goal and didn’t prepare the correct environment for myself that will hold me within the correct borders, then I will completely deviate from the path of the Light and will go on the path of suffering.
[119273]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/13, Shamati #70 “With a Mighty Hand and with Fury Poured Out”

Related Material:
Watch Your Step Carefully
The Main Point Of Life
Make Every Instant More Exalted

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

The Creator is absolute good, writes Baal HaSulam in the article “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose.” Indeed, the Creator is primary; He has no one to receive from; He is complete bestowal. If He gives, He gives goodness. Being primary means that He has nothing bad. This follows both from real attainment and from our intellectual conclusions.

But in this case, why do we see so many terrible things in our world? Of course, “There is none else besides Him” meaning the only acting force. Consequently, all comes from the Creator. How can it be that we feel our states as bad?

The fact is, Baal HaSulam explains that the management of the Creator is goal-oriented. In order to teach us, to lead us to the peak of awareness and understanding, the Creator has to take us through all sorts of rather unpleasant states. Due to them, we begin to discern what is good and what is bad, not in the eyes of our egoistic desire, as at the beginning, but in relation to the desire to bestow.

This scale is so opposite to the one built in us from birth that we do not even understand the essence of their oppositeness. We still have to discover it, and on the way it will be repeatedly presented to us in another form, in another shape, requiring a different approach. After all, every degree is opposite to the adjacent ones, both the lower and higher.

Thus, a person, of course, can never be sure of anything that he experiences. He only has the “anchor,” our world. Here, we are detached from spirituality and in every state return to this separation because with every step we need to fall to the lower degree, at least for a brief moment. We feel as if everything spiritual completely disappears, and then we ascend to a new degree.

The state of “this world” is special because here we can somehow exist without any intention, detached from spirituality. It may be an imaginary world, and yet we live in it, so to speak. Later we will see and understand that this is not existence, not being, but a kind of “fluctuation.” Nonetheless we can ascend the ladder of corrections only if we stand in this world, experience various phenomena in it, strengthen the group and try to make the necessary actions within it.

Here, we are engaged in dissemination; here, we want to see correction. Since we are not yet in the spiritual world, this imaginary, material world becomes the “foundation” for us, solid and unshakable. This means that the specificity of our group also comes out of this world.

Thus, the goal-oriented management of the Creator takes us through horrible states, peculiar to the process of growth, to the sublime and sweet fruit. It’s said that the advantage of light is known from the darkness. If the process is delayed, it also shows the height and the uniqueness of a particular creature. After all, the more complex the soul is, the more stages of growth it requires.

However, this is not directly related to its pace. We accelerate time when we desire changes every moment. If I have been in “business” for twenty years and have come nowhere, I should not reassure myself that I have a high soul that requires a long time for a “run-up.” No, I should judge my development not by the results, but by the speed of internal changes. That is what determines whether I go through the Light or through the darkness, by the path of the Torah or by the path of suffering.

And here, everything depends on the preparation from my side: If I prepare myself for changes, I accelerate time and turn the undesired path into the desired one. In fact, there is no “undesired” path. A person cannot admit, weeping, that the Creator leads him to the goal of creation. We are not a horde of slaves trudging to the absolute good, forced by a whip. This is simply impossible. No, at every stage and every moment, I have a choice between the path of the Torah and the path of suffering. The difference between them is determined by my preparation: whether I want to expose my state in advance and see how far it is from the goal of creation.

And the goal is my adhesion to the Creator, meaning a complete equivalence of form with Him. How is this possible? He is the desire to bestow and I am the desire to receive. We are polar opposites.

The fact is that the Creator sends me the Light that Reforms so my desire gets the “clothing” of bestowal. This is also called the “screen and the Reflected Light.” Thus, I become like Him.

But can I make sure that I advance in the correct direction? To do this, I have a group in which I have to work. If I really strive, I wait as the Creator performs the necessary actions on me, arranges “exercises” for me. I am ready for them; I want them and accept everything willingly, with joy and gratitude, blessing for the evil as well as for the good.

But how can I check myself in this? The criterion is the following: When the burdening of the heart comes, I am glad, glad that I get a place to work, that the Creator has not forgotten me and shows me the height of the next degree. Now, I lack only the Light to rise to it in the altruistic intention.

Thus, the burdening of the heart shows that now I can ascend to the property of bestowal. This is the difference between the path of the Torah and the path of suffering.
[119898]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/7/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Becoming Upgraded To The Version Of The Creator
A Shield Against Dinosaurs
A Traveler Who Advances From Point A To Point B

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”: A more developed person recognizes in himself a greater amount of evil, and hence repels and separates the evil from within to a greater extent. The undeveloped senses in himself only a small amount of evil, and will therefore repel only a small amount of evil. As a result, he leaves all his filth within, for he does not recognize it as filth.

There is the highest, true picture of reality: the good and the evil in the eyes of the Creator. I am at the bottom and have to change my corrupt notion of good and evil according to the way He sees them.

Down here, everyone has his own scale, his own criteria. Everyone judges what is good and what is bad for him according to the yardstick of his egoism. This applies to our behavior with others, various activities, habits, etc. I can separate everything in life according to the categories of good and bad. Accordingly, I expect reward from good in this world or in the future world, and conversely, the bad promises me punishment here or there.

As a result, I am drawn to some things and try to stay away from other things. Everyone has his own “set table” (“Shulchan Aruch” is the code of laws and regulations); everyone determines for himself what he can get closer to and what to move away from according to his evaluation of reward and punishment. In Kabbalah, we add a higher “superstructure” to this, the criteria of good and bad things in the eyes of the Creator, according to which He rewards and punishes in order to bring a person closer to Himself.

So, I was assigned to turn my “set table,” to bring my analysis, definitions, and evaluations from my own realm to the realm of the Creator. I want to judge, see, recognize, and relate to the world as He does. It is said, “Make your desire as His desire.”

The whole method of correction is in essence a system or a machine, a device with which I change in myself the awareness of evil and good, switching it from the criteria of my evil inclination to the criteria of the Creator, the good inclination. We are talking about changing attitudes, feelings, and the principles of analysis and solutions; all of this fills my “container.” A basic program is transformed in me, which is designed for testing and decision-making, an expert system. Time after time, the Light comes and changes all of my inclinations.

With this, the “hardware” of the system remains the same: My “synapses” function as before; my “cells” still respond to impulses. But the Light gradually “reprograms” me, connects me in a new way, and creates new algorithms.

In this way, my spiritual “upgrade” is taking place, an upgrade from the original version of my own desire to the final version, the desire of the Creator. The method of correction develops time after time and increases the feeling of the realization of evil in me, helping me transform my view of the world, my tastes, and my mentality. Everything in me is gradually replaced with new parts, moreover, on my own accord and by my own desire.
[119893]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/7/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
The Creator Is Always the Absolute Good
Can We Defend Ourselves Against The Creator?
Unifying The Two Forces Of Nature Within

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: Why do we work especially on the 613^th commandment which is love of others and the 612^th commandment which is fear of the Creator, while these two commandments stem from all the other 611 commandments? This means that these two commandments had to be considered less important than all the others.

Answer: All we have to attain is:

1. Restriction one, the Masach (screen) over the Light of Hassadim, which means over the attribute of Bina; to be above all our desires, to bestow in order to bestow, and this is the 612^th commandment, receiving the Light of Hassadim.
2. Then we have to fulfill the attribute of “to receive in order to bestow” in the attribute of Keter, which is the 613^th commandment, the commandment of love, unity, the receiving of the Light of Hochma in the Light of Hassadim.

All the other commandments are private corrections and actually make up these commandments, and so in Talmud Eser Sefirot we study only about these two corrections. But when we yearn for them we gradually correct ourselves by fulfilling the private desires the soul is made of in all its 613 parts. So think about these two corrections and all the other private forms will be fulfilled in you by themselves under the influence of the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif).
[119813]

Related Material:
Performing Mitzvot Both Externally And Internally
612 Components Of The Upper Love
The Main Commandment

Filed under: Commandments, Q&A, Spiritual Work - No Comments →