When a person studies the laws of the integrated system, it becomes clear that he can’t change anything. The whole calculation carried with him is based on the fact of whether he is able to take upon himself the law of mutual guarantee.

And if one can’t, then the difference between the way the system works in the state of mutual guarantee and how he was supposed to activate it independently feels to him as suffering, pressure that comes to him from that system. There is no mercy for an individual here, just a calculation of the overall system.

If a person doesn’t comply with its laws, to the extent that he would have to carry them out for the benefit of the whole system, it receives negative feedback from the system. It seemingly stops, waiting for him to put it into action. And that is what he feels like all kinds of misfortunes and suffering.

But if you know what the system is, you can even see in what form and way the problems and troubles will come to a person. It depends on the connection between the souls and the extent to which he has to bring them into action.
[24279]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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When we are in a circle, it means that we remain in the general system of nature, which includes the entire still, vegetative, and animate nature and the human souls in the system of Infinity.

A line is when we take on the function of bringing this system into action instead of letting it be launched from the above, by nature.

A circle represents the condition of absolute mutual guarantee from the above, and a line represents the extent of our ability to realize the mutual guarantee on our behalf.

When we observe the law of mutual guarantee, the still, vegetative, and animate nature also join this process because it is included in our “human” degree. This way the entire system on all of its levels participates in the mutual guarantee.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How does one recognize that he is at a point of choice?

Answer: If you see clearly what is better, this is not a choice—it’s knowledge. And if you don’t understand what’s better, this too is not a choice; it is lack of knowledge.

A choice is possible when you see two equal components in front of you, but it’s impossible to solve anything with them by preferring one over the other. You see that both the desire to receive and the desire to bestow are equally needed; you cannot get by without either of them. You are situated right in the middle between them and you are confident that you must use both of them.

After all, how can I bestow if I don’t use my egoism? I can carry out some actions only due to my desire to enjoy. Yet how can I bestow if I don’t use the desire to bestow? It is impossible to proceed without either one of these desires. So how do we use them together?

I need to first build the attitude of love toward the one to whom this action is directed. And to the extent of my love, I will feel his desire, accept it and make it my own, and then I will be able to use my two desires, two forces, in order to fill his desire in me, like a mother fills an embryo (Ubar) in her womb. And then I make it more external for me, and this is called “feeding” (Yenika) or a big state (Gadlut).

This is how these states are built due to a third force that elucidates them. Then where is this third force? It is the one to whom I wish to bestow.
[24206]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/19/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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We are all linked to each other, like organs, sinews, and cells of one body. Our body is an interweaving of infinite links between minute parts, systems, and cells. That is also how we are interwoven between us and linked to each other. We are apparently found in some sphere which is entirely filled with all kinds of threads and types of connection that link us into one. There are billions of links and every link acts at the “speed of light,” really with infinite speed.

We don’t need to arrange and stabilize these links in ourselves, they are revealed in us ready-made. This is revealed to us from the state of Malchut of the world of Infinity; this passes through a shattering and these parts are revealed before us as apparently far from each other.

But in fact, this distance between them is required for us to create a “sensitivity,” to focus the “resolution,” making it possible for us to see them and the links between them. Otherwise this is impossible; we can distinguish the details of the picture only on condition that they are separate, only in the gap between them.

Therefore, in order to see the entire general system and to be included in it, we must realize the principle of “And you shall love your friend as yourself.” For “your friend” is not some stranger; rather, this is myself. And no matter what I look at, I see my parts that are found outside of me and seem distant and remote, opposite me, so that in this manner I will better discover the concept of the shattering. The stronger the shattering works in me, the more the world seems fragmented and unattainable. This fragmentation testifies to the intensity of the shattering in me.
[118571]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/18/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The goal of creation, if we establish it according to the appropriate activity, is adherence with the Creator. And according to the result, it is in order to bestow all the good to the creatures according to His name, which is “the Good that does good.” And from the side of the creatures, the goal is attained through a correction from their side, in order to bestow satisfaction to the Creator.

Eventually, all three of these conditions are discovered in the point of unification. This point of unification is cumulative, it is “drawn” through the connection of the various, opposing, opposite parts that repel each other. These parts, that is, humans, in spite of it all, make an effort and work, and with this they want to connect their hearts together through a unique power called the Light that Reforms. And that is how we implement the goal of creation.

Today we are found on the level of “this world,” which is found under the ladder of the spiritual levels. And the idea is that all the levels are discovered here in the level of this world. This is to say, the Kabbalist attains all the levels while he is also found in attainment of the level of this world. This ladder “is positioned on the ground and its top reaches the heavens.” And even though its height reaches and grows to the heavens, its foundation is nevertheless found on the earth.

And therefore every ascent on the ladder of the spiritual levels is expressed in the relationship between people, in the relationship of the still, vegetative, animate and speaking in this world. It is easy for us to explain it in this manner according to the interconnection between the branch and the root. And that is essentially what needs to be revealed.

The Kabbalists discovered this in “potential” not through deeds in this world, in small amounts, in a small connection, in a small group. And we need to discover this ladder actively, on a larger scale.

But in any case, according to the conditions, our bestowal to the Creator is carried out through love of the other. And from this we can draw conclusions about it as to which forces and which efforts we need to invest in love of the other so that in this way we can reach love of the Creator.
[118568]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/18/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Desire, Israel, (“straight to the Creator”) in a person gets reformed in stages, step by step since it must reach understanding and attainment according to its inner needs.

In this, it differs from types of desires regarded as “the nations of the world” that get reformed all at once in one set. Desire, Israel, demands that a person discern and attain the spiritual world, get to know it, immerse in its details, become the Creator’s partner, and not just join the system and receive all the good from it on a platter.

Israel wishes to connect with this system and work with it, receiving pleasure from knowing it. As it is written, “Know thy Creator and work for Him,” and there are such desires or people who don’t aspire to knowing the Creator, although it is written that, in the end, “for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them.” However, this is regular knowledge by a person simply residing in the spiritual world.

As in our world, not everyone wishes to be a scientist or researcher and enjoys learning about creation, understanding its causes and effects. There are two rungs of bestowal: to explore and get to know the Creator, or simply join the source of all good. Therefore, the souls that belong to Israel advance step by step, gradually. Naturally, they suffer while doing so since the entire attainment is founded on the previous unsatisfied need that must be cultivated.

Those who refer to the “nations of the world,” the lower rung, and who come in to take it for granted, as it seems, also must do a lot of work, but it doesn’t imply internal adhesion with the Creator as that of two partners.

Whether such a desire emerges in a person depends on the root of the soul. Heart, liver, and lungs—all the vital organs of the body—must maintain the connection with the brain that governs them in the first place, and all the rest of the flesh, comprising 90% of the body, doesn’t have such a direct connection with the brain and interacts with it through the supplementary systems.

This doesn’t mean that one desire is good and another bad, because at the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun), all souls will be absolutely equal. The difference lies only in the path to it. The strong desire is obliged to work on its path itself and uncover all the secrets of creation and the weaker ones, each in its own measure, simply attach to and support the former one. Essentially, everyone must reach the root of his soul, which signifies the end of correction.

In the spiritual world there is no inequality; this is another difference from the material world. Being in the spiritual world, a person acts based on his natural desires and cannot desire something that isn’t planted in the root of his soul.

Only in our corporeal world can I covet a neighbor’s luxurious car. However, in spirituality, I cannot desire what he does. I desire solely what is planted in my own informational genes, Reshimot.

I can gain inspiration and motivation from him but only in order to reform myself. Hence, there cannot be division into “big” and “small” there.
[29282]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/9/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: If I wish to become a partner with the Creator in the work, what do I need to do for Him to agree to it?

Answer: If you agree, it means you are already His partner. You don’t need to do anything else, the Creator always agrees.

However, you choose Him not because He is the most powerful, intelligent, profitable partner. You wish to be His true helper which means to walk the same path to the goal that He defined according to His rules. This means that you are already in bestowal (Hafetz Hesed).

If I come to the Creator and ask to be His partner, it means that I’ve risen above my entire ego and fully entered the state of bestowing in order to bestow. I left the desires of the corporeal world at the level of vital necessities and rose above them with my point in the heart. Next to it, there grew an entire mountain of hatred (Mount Sinai), my ego, and I have ascended it with my point in the heart.

Now, I stand at its summit as a perfect Bina, Hafetz Hesed, and having reached this point, I can tell the Creator that I wish to be His partner. I am ready. Now, give me a job! And He says, “You want a job? Here you go! We will take this entire mountain of hatred and start picking desires out of it and use them to bestow to the rest.”

To be the Creator’s partner means to yearn to be like Him. The Creator gives me the Light and says, “Use your ego to bestow the Light to the others, and you will be like Me, and I will raise your desire, expand it so that you will rise to My exalted position to bestow to all like I do. Then, you will be a partner in everything there is.”

Desires belong to the others, but the Light is mine. Hence, I must withdraw from my desires to please myself, engage in the desires of others, and use mine solely to fill theirs. A mother has her own desires and everything is available to her. She owns the entire world, but she uses it only in order to bestow to her child as his desire dictates.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/9/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Please explain how you establish internal contact with people?

Answer: I try to search for and immerse myself in the place where spirituality is revealed, and each time to re-enter there from our external world. Through the external group, I go inside it in a way where faces and material characters disappear and only the points in the hearts are exposed; I delve into the relationship between them, their connection in one place, and through it, I penetrate more and more deeply into their spiritual properties.

This work has to be done over and over again, and this place constantly expands while acquiring more components, supplying the spirit of life. At this point, when you walk in and experience that connection, tangible forms of connection begin to manifest: the spiritual Partzuf with the occurrence and Histaklut of Light, the complete TANTA (Taamim–Nekudot–Tagin–Otiyot, the taste of the filling and the gradual departure of the Light leaving memories, letters, the tools for further work)

And this place is the internal oneness that expands to the entire creation so that you feel it is all around, that there is nothing but it. And conversely, the entire material world that was all of your reality and which left one tiny point for spirituality, contracts, and this spiritual point grows and fills the entire universe!

And finally, the corporeal world fades away from the foreground, as if the still, vegetative and animate levels are not the most important things for a person. In truth, you start feeling that those people are completely controlled from Above and don’t have any freewill or independent identity. Hence, this world vanishes from your perception. And what is left is only the place where all these spiritual relationships exist. You recognize the upper and the lower ones there, all the Partzufim and how they work with each other and are starting to better understand all of it. And it all depends on how much effort a person exerts in order to have it revealed.

We have to return to it anew each time since we are constantly thrown out from spirituality, pushed down to this world, and we return to the external picture, suddenly seeing the same faces and this entire world that cover the internal picture from us.

And a person starts making more effort striving to penetrate it so that the inner world will grow and expand onto the whole world. In this way, spirituality constantly either contracts and returns to a point or expands again—as if it is breathing.
[30031]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/10/10, Letter #13

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We are not familiar with our own nature and therefore we err all the time in one direction or another in our self-evaluation, blaming or justifying ourselves unjustly. We must understand that we have no possibility of seeing the truth and the only way out is to rely on the Light that Reforms.

Our self-image, our characteristics that now seem to us beautiful or not, all this is still far from a true understanding ourselves that will be discovered in the Light of the Creator when we see our true nature. Only then can we decide what is bad and what is good in us, for even pride is not a useless characteristic.

As it is written, “And his heart was uplifted in the ways of the Lord…” (II Chronicles 17:6), which is to say, we need to be proud, to overcome difficulties, to stand firmly on the way of truth, and not allow anyone to divert us from the way or humiliate us. In this case, humility is not appropriate.

In our view of ourselves and about others, there is much confusion; therefore, the only solution is attracting the Light that Reforms. As it is written, only “…in Your light we will see light” (Psalms 36:10), and, until then, it is necessary only to perform the advice of the Kabbalists precisely in order to advance as much as possible toward true observation of all of our nature and ourselves.

Hillel explained the correct approach, “anything you hate, do not do to others ” (that is what Hillel answered to that convert who asked him to teach him the entire Torah while “standing on one leg”). In the meantime, this is the only examination that we are prepared to make.

If you stand with them on this one foundation, “on one leg,” then this is enough. Even though your condition is very unsure and shaky when you are standing on one leg, if you hold to this one foundation and nothing more—by maintaining this foundation all the time, “anything you hate, do not do to others”—then you can move forward.

We don’t need anything else; this one thing is enough. This is a necessary and sufficient condition. Nothing else is required except connection and we need to work only by means of this all the time. The nature of the action is examined according only to how much the connection between us will be stronger. We don’t take into account anything that is happening around us at all. This already would be a “second leg,” a “third,” which can bring us only great confusion in the work. Therefore, you only should be concerned about your connection.
[118511]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/13

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MAN is a prayer, an act, that comes from desire not from the mind. It is born by the desire of Bina and Malchut acting together. We need to raise this prayer, that is, decide that this is the most important for us. This is called “raising.”

After all, the entire scale of measurement is inside me. Plenty of various demands—desires, which I somehow sort by priorities, considering some more important and some less important—live within me. However, above all, there should the force of unity within which I want to reveal the Creator to bring Him joy.

If I arrange all my actions, desires, and impulses so that this unity has become the most important, this means that I raise MAN. That is, I put the need for unity, correction, and revelation of the Creator (for His pleasure) as the most important, above all. This is called an “ascent.”

I do not send this requirement by mail or via SMS to a distant star. All the worlds are inside a person. There, everything starts, is realized, and ends in his consciousness. That is why I need to organize myself so as to arrange all my desires along one line, according to the clear scale of priorities, strictly material: food, sex, family, wealth, honor, and knowledge, and those that are slightly disconnected from this world. At the very top of this ladder of priorities, there must be my desire to bring pleasure to the Creator through our connection by giving Him the opportunity to be revealed in us now.

MAN is “Mei Nukvin” (female waters). Water is Bina and the woman, Nukva is Malchut. Thus, I join Bina and Malchut in a prayer; in other words, I glue the desires together, parts of Malchut, with the water, mercy (Hesed), the property of Bina. I want it to exist in this form together. I raise this request and want to become connected with others through the property of mercy, Bina, the property of bestowal.

That is why my request is called female waters, MAN. I raise it. That is, I consider it above all in importance, and, if I try to keep this desire in my heart by all means to awaken it in its very depth, then it is called a prayer, raising MAN.

To the extent of my efforts to accomplish this, the Light that Reforms affects me and awakens various states in me: thoughts and feelings in favor of connection and against it, in favor of bestowal and against it. In this way, they try to shake me and navigate me through various states so that I understand, feel more, gain experience. Thus, I gradually become aware what the true prayer, MAN, is.

On this path, I must go through frustration, impatience, fear of not succeeding, and failure to understand what kind of success I am waiting for: for myself or to please the Creator. Here it helps to imagine, the entire universe—all of still, vegetative, and animal nature, and people—as my own desires that broke away from me due to the shattering and have fallen from my consciousness.

Now, they appear in front of me and I must attach them to myself through my own efforts although it seems to me as if they are outside. I must try to relate to them as if they exist within me. Then, my efforts also will be called the prayer, MAN.

Thus, working on my correct perception of reality and connecting all its parts together by means of the property of mercy, I increasingly return the common vessel to its original form, in other words, to the corrected state as a whole.
[118505]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/13, The Zohar

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