Question: In one of the lessons, you said that a student, according to his spiritual progress, starts to disregard the teacher more and more. You also gave an example of your relationship with your teacher. To what spiritual level do we have to rise so that this disregard for the teacher will disappear?

Answer: As in our world, when do we begin to appreciate our parents and understand them?  When we become parents ourselves! But this does not justify disregard. One who wants to grow up must understand his nature and grow in spite of it.
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Question: Can we ever prove that all of the matter of creation is a desire to receive?

Answer: Ask physicists, and they will tell you the same thing, but in different words. There are several basic principles, such as the second law of thermodynamics, and there are several natural constants. If we dig a bit deeper, we will come across the concept of mass. Behind mass, there is energy, and, behind energy, here scientific knowledge comes to a dead end.

We can say that there is a force behind energy, but what is that force? How can we describe it? Scientists are trying to find these bases and when their research will be completed, drawing a line from their studies to the desire to receive, the desire to keep its existence on all the levels of the still nature, the vegetative, the animate, and the speaking.

Even if we speak about the most elementary phenomenon, it is always about its nature. We refer to something that wants to sustain itself in its form of existence. This is the desire to receive, the desire to exist. Without it, there would be nothing, not even for a short while. In this source, even time doesn’t exist yet.

So, the desire precedes everything, and, beyond that, there are different forms that it takes upon itself.

All the sciences and the wisdoms speak about what man discovers here in the framework of corporeal reality. On the other hand, the wisdom of Kabbalah doesn’t speak about our egoistic desire that is only typical of this world, but about a raw desire, about a force that is not dressed in anything yet.

Question: Can it be studied outside the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: No, outside the wisdom of Kabbalah, we simply don’t have the necessary tools. We cannot build an accelerator that would bombard the desire and record its responses. It is because it is much deeper than the micro-world, deeper than the quantum effects. Therefore, you can work only with it inside yourself when you become the “area” to which the Light comes. It hits the desire, and, as a result of their meeting—as a result of the cooperation between them—different particles are created, according to which you discover the Returning Light that descends to a lower level and evokes new Reshimot (spiritual genes) in you.

The elementary schema, according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, is a Masach (screen) that begins to ascend from Tabur. In the next level, there is Zivug de Haka’a (coupling while striking), and the Returning Light descends again from one level to another, thus overcoming the difference in energy in the previous state. From there, it “throws” Tagin on the letters (“crowns” above the letters, and eventually, the differences in energy bring about differences in frequencies, differences in attributes. This comparison enables you to discern the details and put together the general picture.

It is just like a baby who tastes everything, and thus begins to know the world since taste is the main sense that he can use and rely upon at the moment. In spirituality, the new Lights that are revealed in the desire are called “flavors.” They help us learn what is going on.

So, the matter that the target the Light hits is actually me, my desire to receive. Just like scientists who bombard their targets with particles by increasing their energy, we, too, do the same thing, not with corporeal matter, but with the matter of desire, by rising from phase four to phase three, to phase two, and so forth.

Therefore, we cannot speak with scientists about such matters. Of all the sciences, physics is the closest to the wisdom of Kabbalah. We speak about concrete phenomena and forces.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: Does a combination of people in the integral circle form a new force, integrality, meaning people’s minds and feelings are combined together?

Answer: They are not simply combined together, but, rather, the mind and feelings are mutually complemented. Therefore, they form a new, physical, integral force. This is not just a sum, but rather, a sum of all common efforts to rise above oneself to connect with others; that is, it is a spiritual force.

Spiritual means “apart from egoism” because everyone must rise in order to begin connecting with others.

All our small efforts accumulate together. Then, from our connection, we begin to sense something new. It’s very good, kind, pleasant, and safe.

Let’s say that ten people sit in the circle. However, during the discussion, they form not just a combination of the ten people, but it’s multiplied by an infinite number. This is because, when I annul myself in order to connect with one and another one and a third one, and they, in turn, do the same, in this way, each of us receives the integral desire. Then, with this integral desire, we, again, “enter” one another in one experience, and, in this way, we form a multiplicity of multiplication. It is as if we pull ourselves by our hair from our world into the spiritual world.
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From KabTV’s program, “Professional Secrets,” 2/10/13

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Question: What does it mean to exit my body and treat the world outside me, rocks and flowers, with love?

Answer: It is about a state in which a person has already entered the spiritual world, not simply loving nature, plants, animals, and people who are close or distant to one’s self. In order to really be able to exit your ego, you were given friends, a group, and you have to use this means. If you establish the right attitude towards the group, then you will see how it can help you and take you out of yourself.

Only then will you understand who you were, what was on the outside, and why the Creator has created this world that we see as external to us. You will understand why you have a special body in this world that is meant to help you perform this exit.

Only after you begin to come out by all the external help of the good environment, will you feel that your attitude towards the still, vegetative, and animate nature is also changing. You will treat all of humanity differently since you will see everyone in the Light of bestowal and will start judging everything differently.

The ultimate goal is to reach equivalence of from with the Creator, after which you will certainly justify Him in every way; you do all that not in order to better your personal state, but because you want to bring Him contentment so that He will enjoy you.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/13, Shamati #36 

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The global crisis leaves more and more people unemployed. This is not just for economic reasons. The consequences of over consumerism are becoming evident: How many more new products can appear on the market? How much more do we need to buy? There is an end to everything, including consumerism. The desires are changing and people don’t want all that any more.

In the next phase of our evolution, humanity will move on to spiritual work. Everything that we need corporeally will be easily provided by modern technology, scientists, engineers, and a small amount of service people who, by their nature, will be happy to deal with such things. But most people will have to make inner efforts and this will become their “occupation” on the next level of humanity. On the next spiritual level people will connect, be incorporated in one another, and our fictitious world will gradually “evaporate” and disappear, like a cloud on a clear day, until we will be left in a reality of true feelings. This is our evolution and there is nothing we can do about it.

So the world will have to be reorganized. We mustn’t ignore the unemployed. There are already quite a few studies that show how dangerous it is when a person has nothing to do. It leads to conflicts in the family and to divorce; we lose our humanity, and we lose the incentives and the commitments for things that need to be done. When a person doesn’t have to make any efforts, he becomes less than an animal.

Animals are busy doing something from morning to night: looking for food, for a mate, for a place to dwell, and taking care of their offspring. They use the “recreation time” for useful games by which they establish the right connections in the flock, the herd, etc. Have you ever seen an ant doing nothing like a football fan lying on the couch with a bottle of beer and a cigarette?

Today a person has to move to massive spiritual work, to establish the general mutual connection, and to reorganize society, and yet, in the meantime, we do nothing, preferring idle contemplations.

This terrible fall will cost us dearly. It will bring a heavy feeling of bitterness and a person will lose his mind and go wild. The lack of obligations prevents him from acting and leaves him empty, poisoning his consciousness. Besides, he loses his professional skills and the skills to communicate with other people. It’s as if everything in him sinks, disappears, and he turns into a “ghost,” a “zombie,” and not a human being.

This is what will happen to people who would remain idle if we don’t start dealing with them in an organized manner. The modern world believes in democracy and free elections, but what can we expect of the voters? Can they be rational and see things correctly in this situation? Eventually it will force the governments to make changes…
[102783]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/13, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”: In spirituality, the time of giving and the time of receiving are separate. This is because first it was given from the Creator to the receiver; and in this giving He only gives him a chance to receive. 

Question: How can we recognize this opportunity and use it correctly?

Answer: It has several signs, and the first is when we are not left in peace. If we don’t wake up, then what kind of chance does it give us? We usually “wake up” either in a coffee shop, or bar, or during a football match on the TV. Can we really wake up for correction if our nature is simply an egoistic desire to receive pleasure? We only wake up because of purposeful, special, and qualitative troubles.

Over thousands of years of development, humanity received plenty of simple blows. If a single generation of long-lived people had experienced this, they would look incredibly pitiful. This is why we reincarnate from generation to generation—to come namely to qualitative blows.

Today, we have food, clothes, and shelter. Each of us lives better than the kings did five hundred or a thousand years ago. Refrigerators, air conditioners, microwaves, mobile telephones, cars, or if worse comes to worst, public transportation are the attributes of our modern life. The entire world is in front of us. But not that long ago, even Europe looked very differently: People lived in terrible conditions and had inconceivable social relationships.

We all are relatively well-off. So what is lacking in our lives? We lack joy, purpose in life. What do we live for? The paradox of our life is that we have everything we need, but we hardly enjoy our existence.

Previously, it was the other way around. Had a person had a loaf of bread every day, he would have wanted nothing else. Having this “bliss,” he would have stayed in bed the entire day. Whereas today, people rest on their couches because they are emptied by the abundance. This is what is called qualitative blows. Rebellious children, broken families, fears, worries, and confusion—a person does everything to avoid them, but there is no place to run.

On the other hand, the world is  being “pulled together” by a single net, and we worry because of the New York stock exchange, European crops, heavy rains in remote areas, or conflicts in other countries. We are connected with everyone and depend on everything. We constantly feel pressure and uncertainty. Thus, we are forced to take care of others.

As a result, we all experience disasters that are aimed particularly at us, and that shapes one single question in our brain: “What’s the purpose of my suffering?” Baal HaSulam formulated this question a little differently: “Who is it who enjoys what’s happening? Or even more precisely, whom do I delight?” The problem is that there are no answers to these questions.

In general, the current period of our lives represents the “opposite side” of the era of Messiah. Before anything else, we must reveal a desire. That’s why the Light comes to us through the “back entrance,” from behind. Our duty is to reverse it in such a way that it shines before us. Rabash writes about it in his article “The Matter of the Association of the Quality of Mercy with Judgment.” The upper one seems to me as something very gloomy and repulsive until I rise “above reason” and start revealing Him and getting attached to Him. I transform myself into my opposite (оr do the same with Him in my eyes), and then we turn face to face to each other.

However, He still shines to me through the “back side” and causes disasters that gradually drag me to a correct approach by building a vessel within me.

This is how we have passed all levels, all historic stages. Baal HaSulam writes that any state is preserved until it becomes unbearable. Then we destroy it and build something else instead.

However, this time we don’t have to destroy or build anything at the level of this world. Rather, we must comprehend and digest what’s going on with us, explore the situation we are in, and understand and acknowledge it. The main thing is to realize that the upper one has to perform all changes. But it’s not because we are powerless; after all, He did everything previously as well, albeit without us being aware of it. Today, we must acknowledge this fact and make sure that we accept every action that the upper one does, and that we must elicit all of His actions, ask for them and thank Him for them, and thus constantly accompany all of His steps.

This is actually the “work for the sake of the Creator”: I get to know Him, I begin merging with Him. This is the specifics of our last developmental stage: We get to know the Creator better and better, until we know Him completely. In other words, finally, we will see that everything that happens to us, including “negative” events, were prepared for us by Him solely to make us know Him better. This kind of knowing Him is impossible without our participation. This is exactly what is still concealed from us.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/11/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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When rising to Bina, a person (Malchut) annuls himself above all the egoism that is revealed in him. Ibur (gestation) is a terrible state for the desire to receive. Imagine that you returned to the womb: There can’t a more terrible state for you; you have no air, no light, and no freedom to move. You are squeezed into a narrow confinement, like in a vise gripping all your senses, so that you can’t move internally in your consciousness or externally.

Entering the spiritual womb is a terrible feeling, spiritual claustrophobia…but you prefer this state, because if you are in it, in Bina, in the attribute of bestowal, then you don’t need anything! You accept the dark solitary confinement as the good promised land, as heaven. The condition for entering spiritual Ibur is to change your appreciation of Malchut to Bina and to begin to value the attribute of bestowal.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/13, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: …although we see the bodies changing from generation to generation, this is only the case with the bodies. But the souls, which are the essence of the body’s self, do not vanish, to be replaced, but move from body to body, from generation to generation.

“The body” stands for a desire to receive. If the intention to bestow is present in it, then according to the law of the similarity of properties, the Light dresses into it. The Light’s tiniest elementary particle (the initial level of the soul) is called “Nefesh.” In general, the Light that dresses in a corrected desire belongs to a different level of the soul and is called “Neshama.” We will never completely reveal the highest Lights such as Haya and Yechida until we reach the end of correction.

In fact, the vessel and the Light are all that there is. It also happens that the Light cannot emerge in the vessel; therefore, it slightly “illuminates” the vessel so that it can stay alive. It also happens that the vessel becomes similar to the Light by acquiring the correct intention. The desire to receive and the Light by definition are antagonistic since the Light is constantly bestowing. However, if on top of the desire to receive there is the intention to bestow (meaning “faith above reason” or the “reflected Light”) then the receiving desire becomes somewhat similar to the Light and thus it may be filled with the Light because there is a connection between them. The Light that descends to the desire to receive is called “Nefesh,” “Ruach,” or “Neshama.”

The wisdom of Kabbalah talks about the corrected “body” of the desire to receive. On the other hand, there is no soul in our present desire whatsoever, not even at the level of “Nefesh.” We are not talking about physical bodies here, since bodies are a part of this “illusionary” world.

Books written by Kabbalists are not medical manuals, nor are they written as anatomy textbooks. They talk about spirituality and the soul. The “soul” is a particle of the Creator, meaning of the desire to fulfill and please. It’s the Light that dresses into a corrected desire to receive. It has nothing to do with our current desires that “nourish” this world and belong to the “animate” level. Not at all! It’s about our desire toward the Creator that belongs to the “speaking” level.

Where do we find these desires? They can be found only in the group of friends, never in our physical sensations. This explains why we should “skip” physiology and everything that pertains to the body. Kabbalah doesn’t talk about these things. It explores the desires that emerge in us when we seek the Creator, whether those are “good” bestowing desires or “bad” ones when we “steal” from Him.

These relationships are described very well in the example of the guest and the Host. When I sit at the table that is full of delicacies, it’s not about what is in front of me, but rather who the Host is. The rest refers to the “animate” level and should be left behind the scenes. The thing is that I am sitting across from the Host! How do I relate to Him? How does He relate to me? What is going on between us? This is the wisdom of Kabbalah, and it’s all about spirituality.
[102245]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/13, “The Peace”

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Question: It is known that while a man does not become a father himself, he cannot understand what it means. Even the numerous examples in front of him will not help, until he assumes father’s duties and feels responsibility, caring, and loving. We also study the future states theoretically, not understanding what it is in reality to be responsible for the lower degree…

Answer: Absolutely. However, we were given the possibility to realize it. First of all, a person annuls himself before the teacher, group, studies, the world, and the Creator. Being in your environment, check how far you are able to advance in this direction. By this, you will prepare yourself for more qualitative self-annulment.

Question: But this is still not real—theoretical self-annulment. Just as one listens to advice on healthy living until the disease forces him to follow doctors’ suggestions.

Answer: That is why our method contains several parts. The world has an influence on you; you join the group that studies with the teacher by special books written by sages. Here you are affected by a range of factors and, in addition, you have to feel that the upper force is behind this, and there is nothing except it. And then, according to these manifestations, you see how to annul yourself before them.

Besides, they explain to you that in reality the “external” picture is woven of your internal parts of perception: You have to join one of them and reject the other one.

In a word, you are given a field of work and everything depends on whether you accept this or not. You cannot isolate yourself from everyone, “What is a teacher for me? Everything is clear without him. Why do I need friends? I have my own head. I can understand the books myself better than others. I don’t owe anything to the world, it can burn…”

On the other hand, if you feel that you need all this, that this is the projection of your soul, you have to get closer to these parts, include them in yourself according to the principle, “I dwell among my own people,” then the picture appears in a different light. Thus, you increase your sensitivity, go towards change, and save a lot of time. Moreover, your attitude towards change is transformed; now you desire it.

This is preparation, a mandatory stage before the transition from theory to practice.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/11/13, ”Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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