A question I received: Why does the sensation of the Upper Light evoke both immense pleasure and terrible suffering?

My Answer: This depends only on your qualities and on whether they’re directed toward the goal. If the Light shines inside a Kli that’s prepared and corrected, then you feel It as goodness. And if It shines into an unprepared, uncorrected Kli, then you feel suffering. However, if your direction is towards the goal, this alters your sensation of the Light to joy, because you anticipate the struggle and the achievement of the goal.

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A question I received: Many people around me are experiencing failures in different areas, including money, their feelings, and family relationships. Should a person try to figure out where and how he made a mistake? In other words, should he view his current state as being strictly individual and directly dependent on his own actions? Or, should he begin studying the wisdom of Kabbalah and expect inner changes to happen to him as a result of the Light’s influence, without worrying about what he did or failed to do, and what brought him to this problem?

My Answer: Since we are all interconnected, no one is personally responsible for what is happening in the world or to them personally, because everything is pre-programmed and descends from Above. We have to react to things realistically on the corporeal level and, at the same time, correct ourselves on the spiritual level. This is how we unite the two worlds, unifying the Creator’s governance of us through the influences of “Havayah-Elokim.”

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Questions I received on how to correct our egoistic nature:

Question: What do I have to do to persuade the Upper Light to correct me?

My Answer: You have to reach the point where you discover that by hating someone else, you hate yourself, and you harm yourself just by thinking badly of someone, with your negative attitude to others! In addition, you won’t just desire for bad things not to happen to others because they will negatively affect you, but more than that, you’ll begin to discover that your bad, egoistic thoughts about others immediately return to you.

And then you’ll discover that another person and you is the same thing, and you cannot think of others badly as this would be equivalent to thinking badly about yourself. But at the same time, you cannot stop thinking badly of them.
That is when you’ll come to the necessity for the Upper Light, which will correct you.

Question: I hate successful people, and I feel good when others feel bad. I hate the entire world and the entire humanity. What should I do?

My Answer: Actually, you cannot be any different. Everyone feels this way, but most people just haven’t discovered the evil inside them. It is written, “I created egoism and I created Kabbalah for its correction, because the Light of Kabbalah corrects a person (returns him to the Creator).” So, keep on advancing!

Question: What’s the best way to deal with the hatred, envy and jealously that I feel toward others in the group?

My Answer: You will never be able to overcome them. Only the Upper Light, which affects you during the study of Kabbalah, will correct you.

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Three questions I received on one’s inner work:

Question: Everyone is in different situations and going through different states. I want to know: what is the essence of our connection? How can we be together? How can we tell what our role in the general system is, and how can we fulfill that role? At every given moment, how do we act in a way that will allow us to maintain the connection?

My Answer: It is precisely in order to create this connection that we study, gather together, and disseminate Kabbalah. Kabbalah is the science about the correct way for us to interconnect, and the Creator becomes revealed within this connection.

Question: What is the source and the purpose of feeling loneliness? Why do I feel lonely, though surrounded by many people (friends, family, colleagues, etc.)?

My Answer: It’s in order for you to develop a desire for a true connection with others and with the Creator – a connection that will be filled with Light, rather than an empty connection.

Question: Why do you say we can only discover things internally? Isn’t that egoistic? And what about the friends? They’re external to someone who is not across the Machsom.

My Answer: You cannot impose correction on anyone, and you also can’t do it for anyone. You can only tell others about the world, its purpose, and how to achieve it.

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A question I received: I just came across Pulsa d’Nura which is supposedly a Kabbalistic practice to curse someone and apparently they have used it in Israel to curse Ariel Sharon and others, and it worked every time. This is horrible! Is this true? Can someone use Kabbalah to hurt another person?

My Answer: Usually this happens the way it happened to Rasputin: He cut the chandelier in the lounge and warned that something horrible would if a prince were to enter. Then when the chandelier actually fell, everyone said he was a prophet. So it’s the same here: the moment something happens, hundreds of charlatans appear and shout, “We told you so!” So calm down – there are no miracles in this world!

The world is what we perceive. We call that which is revealed to us “this world” or “our world,” and that which isn’t yet revealed to us, “the concealed world.” And we constantly reveal the world to a greater extent. Therefore, “the hidden” and “the revealed” are constantly changing, since the boundaries of “the revealed” expand.

We are now approaching the stage of the full revelation of the world, where nothing will remain concealed. The Creator (all of Nature) will become revealed to us because we will become equivalent to the Creator’s nature by changing our common egoism to the quality of bestowal. Then, we will all reveal Him, as it is written, “Everyone will know Me, from the greatest to the smallest.”

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Two questions I received on what conditions are necessary for one’s spiritual advancement:

Question: I am 18 years old. I live in Brazil, far away from any group, so I am studying online and my only contact with the group is through the Internet. Since my point in the heart woke up, I keep on the path as much as I can, but sometimes I feel alone here, not being able to attend the Congress or to be part of a physical group. What’s your advice: is it enough for me to be connected with others through the Internet? What else can I do to accelerate my correction?

My Answer: Staying virtually connected suffices in order to advance. Watching the lessons, keeping a virtual connection with the entire worldwide group of students, and participating in Kabbalah dissemination are the sufficient conditions for revealing the Creator!

Question: It seems to me some people live in conditions (socially, financially, physically, mentally, etc.) that are simply not conducive to entering spirituality, even though they may have a point in the heart and even though they may want to study Kabbalah. Can they cross the Machsom?

My Answer: If a person has received knowledge about this opportunity, it means that the Creator has given him a freedom of will, and after that everything depends on the person. Every Reshimo that emerges in a person contains all the data about his inner and outer Kli (that is, about him and his surroundings). This gives him the feeling that there is “him” and “the world,” including everything necessary for his advancement and free choice (including the group, whether virtual or physical). This is why it is written, “A person should always say, ‘The world was created for me’ (for him to realize his inner Reshimo at every given moment). If one sways oneself to the scale of merit, he sways the whole world to the scale of merit. And if one sways oneself to the scale of evil, he sways the whole world to the scale of evil.”

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Our world is now at the end of its intrauterine development. The current crisis is like labor pains – the last stages of our egoistic development. And the way out of this state is the birth.

Baal HaSulam explains that “coming out of Egypt” is a spiritual birth. The whole of humanity is now completing its development as an embryo, and the global crisis is the labor pains preceding humanity’s spiritual birth. These labor pains can last for a long time, like it often happens in our world when the labor pain suddenly lets go of the woman, comes back again, decreases and again increases.

Therefore, we cannot relax when the crisis suddenly diminishes and stabilizes for a period of time, as if things were returning to the regular routine. Everyone may be laughing at Kabbalists, saying: “Why were you trying to scare us by saying that something awful is coming and that this will last forever until we reject our egoism? Now everything is returning to normal and we are back to the celebration of life.” The fact is, we need to be patient, because a second and a third wave are on the way, like labor contractions that will result in the birth – our exit out of our egoism and entrance into the quality of bestowal.

However, we would like to reduce the duration of these pains as much as possible, so the birth will happen quickly, even immediately – in one push. This is possible; the time between the contractions can be significantly reduced, as well as the number of contractions. This is how we can accelerate the process of the birth.

A baby is born when the contractions accelerate so much that they merge into a single contraction, instead of coming one after another. They no longer come little by little, but become concentrated in one effort. So let us make our birth happen quickly, because it’s an unpleasant process and the best way to go through it is in one push – in the current crisis, rather than in recurring crises.

This is how the spiritual process works. In the spiritual birth, the contractions signify that the birth is taking place. It’s not like in our corporeal world, which is corrupted by egoism, where a woman may feel contractions even a month before the birth. In a corrected spiritual object, the contractions quickly concentrate around the embryo and push it out. The labor pains are meant to open the “doors” through which the newborn will come into the new world.
(Excerpt from the lesson on 01.29.2009, from 34:08 – 37:59)

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A question I received: Here’s a familiar scenario: a person wants to smoke, so he smokes, but suffers from knowing that smoking is bad for him. Or, take an employer who has to pay his employees: if he pays them little – he suffers, and if he pays them a lot – he also suffers. And it’s the same with everything: “To get married – not to get married, to die – not to die,” but no matter what you do, you will be sorry about it later. These are my thoughts. How do you explain them?

My Answer: My advice to you is: Stop thinking about yourself! Let the world go where it’s going without your worries. Don’t think about the world, meaning, don’t think about yourself or the world. Clean yourself out completely.

And now, think about something higher than you or beyond you. Aspire to the Upper World, and hold only this in your field of vision.

However, this doesn’t mean that you should shut yourself off from the world. Make bodily or physical actions in the world to whatever degree it is necessary for you and for others.

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A question I received: I am non Jewish, and I have been studying Kabbalah for several years. I am considering the path of conversion. However, I am trying to find information on the concept of Chasid Omot Olam. All I know is that this is a non Jewish person who lives his life according to the precepts and the cause of spreading Kabbalah. Is this correct? How can I find more information on this concept?

My Answer: There’s no need to convert. You have to correct yourself to “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and today this is required of all people. Nationalities and religions will vanish, and our world will disappear from our perception. The only thing that will remain is the one common soul, united with the Creator in the state of the World of Infinity, just as it was at the beginning of creation. Read the section about the three states in Baal HaSulam’s article, “Introduction to the Book of Zohar.”

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Three questions I received on the spiritual desire:

Question: First of all, thanks for a great Congress at Blackpool which I thoroughly enjoyed. Which prayers should we be saying as potential Kabbalists? I have watched the children’s lesson on prayer but cannot find the answer. Is there a particular prayer book we should use?

My Answer: A prayer is the heart’s desire. One should do all that one can to make his heart desire the goal of creation – the revelation of the Creator.

Question: Why does the Creator want us to need Him?

My Answer: Because He is the quality of “bestowal and love” within us. And this quality creates a sensation – within us – of an eternal and perfect life.

Question: You say that a person needs to feel a “deficiency.” What kind of deficiency are you talking about: spiritual or corporeal?

My Answer: This means that you must reveal that you don’t love others, and reveal it in such a way that it will suppress your self-love. It is as though you ascend on top of the mountain of your egoism through love for others, and to this degree, the Creator will be revealed to you, or rather, in you.

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