When a person approaches midlife, he begins gradually “sliding down” to death. One does not die in an instant just as one does not become an adult immediately. His candle – the egoistic desire that burns in him – fades away gradually.

Until the age of 40-45, one thinks that his whole life is in front of him and that he will be able to fulfill himself. But at the age of 40, one grows disappointed and sees that it’s pointless waiting for big changes to happen in his life. And this is how he begins dwindling.

One’s egoistic desire becomes more and more submissive, accepting of what it has, until the desire to advance disappears completely. Thus, it dies. So it’s not our body that dies, but our desire to go on, which grows weaker.

Is there anything we can do about this? Everyone is looking for ways to live longer. But why do people want this – isn’t there enough suffering for us? Do we want to suffer for 140 years instead of 70? We want this because we are more scared of death than of losing something in this life.

However, if a person is in a society that engages in spiritual development, the society gives him energy and a desire to advance. Thus, he always feels like a child who has many desires. And besides his egoism, he develops a new desire – to bestow. This desire always grows bigger, glows brighter, and never fades.

This growing desire constantly revitalizes a person, so he stays as active and relentless as a child throughout all the years of his life. During the 70 or so years of his life, he will never fade away. And moreover, he will not feel any loss at the death of his physical body, but will see it as a leap to a higher degree with regard to his desires and his soul.

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A question I received: If everything a person feels exists only inside his Kli, then there must be an external factor: Direct Light. After all, if this is purely an inner sensation, it is logical to assume that it already exists inside man, only it is hidden from him.

This is like a child who hasn’t learned to walk yet because he still hasn’t found the technique to make this action. In the same way, all the Light already exists in man, like the great potential of our brain that we haven’t discovered yet, but we don’t know how to use any of it, except a few percent. If this is true, then this duality will fade, and the only thing that will remain is man and his environment.

My Answer: I agree with you!

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A question I received: Can a person who isn’t Jewish acquire a soul? According to Kabbalists like Rabbi Hiya, the soul (Neshama) can only be acquired by a person who observes the Torah.

My Answer: Of course, Rabbi Hiya is right. Every person who aspires to the Creator is called Israel. Every person who corrects his egoism according to the condition, “I created egoism and the Torah for its correction,” is considered a person who observes the Torah and the 613 commandments (he corrects the 613 desires of the soul). He then receives the Upper Light, the revelation of the Creator, inside his corrected desires, called the soul.

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A question I received: What does the “breaking of the covenant,” which is considered a great sin in religion, mean from the point of view of Kabbalah?

My Answer: The covenant is when one attains adhesion with the Creator through equivalence of form with Him. Equivalence of form is attained by correcting one’s absolutely egoistic nature to its opposite: bestowal and love, the Creator’s nature. If a person reaches this state, he has to guard it. But let’s get there first.

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We are nothing but a desire to receive that is being controlled by pleasure. This desire (we) goes from one state to another under the influence of two forces: attraction and repulsion. Thus, there are only two components in the entire creation: a desire for pleasure, and a pleasure that sets it in motion. They exist on all levels and stages – in solids, crystals, liquids, biological and chemical elements, and in all inanimate and animate matter. The foundation of everything is a desire to receive pleasure, and the fulfillment that is opposite to it.

A question arises: If all that exists is only the desire to receive and its fulfillment, then it would seem that the system is static. So why is there motion in it from the very beginning? After all, the Creator initially created the desire to receive with the help of the force of bestowal. Hence, this system should reach equilibrium and stop changing upon reaching a balance between the two forces. So why is there no such stop, but only permanent motion?

The answer is that it is because there is one more force at work in this system. The force operating in the creation includes two components: the Creator wants to give pleasure to the desire He created, and in addition, He also wants to bring this desire to equivalence to Himself. Hence. the desire has a feeling of pleasure, and inside of this feeling, it reveals another feeling – the sensation of the Giver.

This is the reason for our questions, “What for? Why?” And these questions just won’t allow us to sit back and enjoy life. Otherwise, we would reach a balance and be like animals. Everything would be fine and good, and all of Nature would stop upon reaching the point of balance.

However, the goal of creation is to bring the entire creation, including the still, vegetative, animate and human levels, to equivalence with the Creator. For this reason, motion is incorporated in everything. But who or what sets everything in motion? It is not the desire to enjoy and receive pleasure, but the feeling of the Giver, which is revealed inside the pleasure.
(From the lesson on Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Freedom,” on 03.06.2009)

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We strive toward balance in every way, whether consciously or unconsciously. This is how we all relate to everything around us. We only feel comfortable when everything around us is in balance. At every moment, all that we desire is to attain balance with all the forces that influence us. Our only aspiration is to neutralize them all.

Question: Is this aspiration for balance good or bad?

My Answer: It’s neither good nor bad. It’s a law of Nature that we all follow, whether consciously or unconsciously. However, by shifting from the unconscious way of balancing to a conscious one, one reveals the forces that affect him, including the main force – the Creator. And this is how one attains absolute comfort!

Question: So why is it that we don’t reach balance, even though we constantly strive for it?

My Answer: In life, the rule is that every time I want to reach balance, I reveal a greater level of imbalance. A person who desires one hundred ounces of pleasure begins to desire two hundred grams once he acquires it, and then four hundred grams. Therefore, he never reaches balance and always feels a deficiency. The forces of attraction and repulsion are never in balance.

This law governs our lives. Let’s look at illness, for example. Let’s say that I have high blood pressure. What does this mean? It means that my inner system is unable to maintain a balance with the external pressure. Thus, I have to take a drug that will balance it.

We are being pressured by an aerial pillar eighty kilometers high, and there are tons of pressure on us. But the same kind of pressure also exists within us, which balances it. Otherwise we’d be squashed. This is how everything in Nature, on all Its levels, is balanced. And when you see an imbalance, you reveal the steps necessary to reach balance. (From the lesson on Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Freedom,” on 03.06.2009)

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A question I received: Recently I came to the conclusion that what causes us suffering is our desire. It is impossible to reduce and it never ends. I want to stop desiring anything. I simply don’t wish to desire anything, and I just want to do what I must, no matter what comes my way. Is this possible? Don’t tell me, “try it and see.” I understand that this is impossible. But what should I do now?

My Answer: Try it and see. “Try” means to study and disseminate Kabbalah. You will then gain an understanding from being connected to the group, and will begin to feel the influence of the Upper Force on you. The group is like a tuning fork for a musician – it is an instrument for attuning yourself to the Creator, since the direction leading to him is hidden from us.

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Two questions I received on the quality of bestowal:

Question: Lots of things come together as one whole for me thanks to my studies over the Internet. At your lectures and lessons, you always repeat that “bestowing” means interacting with the group and giving to others according to one’s level. If you help others in your region using the opportunities that have become available to you, is this also considered bestowal?

My Answer: Yes.

Question: If a person makes an action directed at unity and bestowal, but it’s not beneficial to the one who performs it, is this considered “faith above reason”?

My Answer: Such an act is always beneficial to the one who performs it.

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A question I received: Many phenomena in the world change from one extreme to another: from light to dark, cold to hot, life to death, minus to plus, motion to rest, and so on. Isn’t there another method of spiritual development besides including all the opposites in ourselves?

My answer: The Creator is the feeling of one quality: bestowal, love. However, since we are the created beings, we can only feel something on the background of something else, or in comparison with it.

Pleasure inside the desire is the Light of the Creator inside of you. This constitutes the whole of creation. Therefore, as a result of our development, we must come to incorporate the entire desire – the Kli of the World of Infinity, and the entire fulfillment – the Light of the World of Infinity, the Creator.

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Two questions I received on what the Creator actually created:

Question: I have heard you say, “The Creator and Nature are the same.” How can this be?  What did the Creator create, if not Nature, meaning, the world, the universe, and everything that’s in it?

My Answer: All of this is the Creator. The only thing that was created is your own self.

Question: Did the Creator create us with the intention to receive rather than to bestow so that we would have our own desire and then ask Him to change it to the intention to bestow, so we would reach equivalence of form with Him? But won’t the development of this new desire, which will emerge from nothing, out of the creation itself, lead to a recognition of being separate from the Creator?

My Answer: The correction is brought about precisely by the recognition of evil and of one’s separation from the Creator by virtue of egoism.

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