Question: Is it important to understand exactly what the Creator wants from me or is it most important to simply continue as best as one can?

Answer: The Creator wants only one thing from you: for you not to leave Him.

There is no thought, desire, or action in the world, which does not lead towards the revelation of the Creator, directly or indirectly. There is nothing besides this.

We would have revealed Him directly, but this is practically impossible to do. And since we are not capable of moving from point “A” to point “B” by the shortest direct path, a number of indirect reasons arise that direct us and make us move.

These events may confuse a person in many ways, placing obstacles in front of him and making him spin around them for many long years before he makes one step forward. Although it would seem that he could have moved directly without going around.

But in everything that is happening in the world and in the whole of the human history, there is nothing besides the movement towards the Creator. Why else should all events occur if everything is defined by the opposition of the Light and the vessel and the revelation of the Reshimot, (informational genes)? Everything is directed only at clarifying and correcting them. Either, we directly perform our work on them, or as a consequence of the separation, nature will make us come to the same result by the path of suffering. However, this will take a long time since the forces of egoism (Klipot) are stretching it out like rubber, turning each point into a long period, in this way depriving us of strength and confusing us.

As it is said: “The Creator created man straight, but people have thought up of numerous retributions.”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/5/12, Shamati #25

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Question: Should we examine the issue of life and death and the solution to this question in the basic course of integral education?

Answer: I think it is possible because we are speaking about a person’s desire.

We should rate these desires from the level of the inanimate, the vegetative, and the animate up to the level of “Human.” We should explain that every desire takes over the others and thus suppresses them: The higher a desire is, the more real, intense, and dominating it is over the lower desires.

It is very hard to explain what the “human in me” means right from the start. It is above my animal level, above my corporeal life. If I feel that I am human, when I don’t think about the body but rather am filled by some idea, I actually don’t feel my body—it is as if I am floating above myself.

If I descend to the animal level, like an ordinary person in this world, I feel the body. But in any case, while being in my animal body, I don’t feel pain when I cut my hair or my nails because it is at the vegetative level.

If I descend to the vegetative level, I don’t feel the inanimate level, where there are no nerves and so on.

Thus, we can speak about the development from the bottom up and about a person’s descent from the top down by explaining how he gradually leaves this life.

We can explain and show a person that if he is in this social, integral body that constantly supports him, he will not feel even a minute of suffering, not in this life and not when this life is over.

A person who is connected with others constantly becomes healthier by being connected to the system that is full of mutual connection with others, and so even if something happens to him, there is an energetic compensation on the account of others. Thus, society operates as a healthy body. If a thorn enters a person’s body, for example, the whole body begins to work against it, by pushing it out, by treating the infected area, etc. The same thing happens with a person in society—the society immediately feels all the person’s internal problems and provides him with the necessary energy, and he is healed.
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From a Talk on Integral Upbringing 5/22/2012 

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Question: Where does faith above reason come from to us?

Answer: Everything comes from above, and the only thing that depends on a person is how much he can rise above his sensations in order to achieve understanding, clarity, unification and connection.

This awakening can take place through suffering, which is called “in due time” (Beito). But if a person receives this awakening from the group, it is called “acceleration of time” (Ahishena).

If a person awakens through blows, then he goes through all of these states again from the very beginning. But if the awakening comes from the group, it already includes the screen and Reflected Light. That’s because by becoming included in the group, he already carried out his work, made efforts, and attracted the Reflected Light to himself.

There are four phases of HaVaYaH which a person carries out himself, and therefore the path of Light and the path of suffering are two completely opposite paths, like Direct and Reflected Light.

“Acceleration of time” is when we become included in the group, which instantly begins building the right instruments or desires in us for understanding the Creator. Whereas the natural path, “in due time” merely lays the preliminary conditions in us to begin this process. There is a huge difference between the two.

After all, by receiving suffering, I have to repeat everything over and over again in order to understand where the suffering is coming from and why. This is an extremely drawn out process. I only run from one place to another as I receive the blows, but I do not advance as this does not give me understanding. And only after many blows and suffering like this do I finally begin to see their purposefulness and causality. Then I already begin to understand that apparently, they are coming to me in order to teach me.

People often come to me asking, “Why was I the one to receive this punishment from above?” This is called the path of suffering.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/12/12, Shamati #121

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Some people think that the Creator can be reached through torturing oneself, making one suffer. But the Creator doesn’t need our sufferings. He doesn’t send them to us. We feel them because according to the nature of the creation, the Light and the desire are opposite to each other. And by revealing this oppositeness, a person must realize that this feeling is given only in order to rise above it. It is only a sign allowing us to feel the oppositeness and separation from the Creator.

First of all, we should be thankful for getting such a sign, and move away from this bitter feeling as soon as possible. After all, willingly or not, consciously or unconsciously, through this unpleasant sensation we blame the Creator, the source of all that is happening to us. And thus I find myself opposite to and separated from Him, and this is called a sinner.

We must strive only toward lighter feelings, toward getting closer to the Creator. A person’s search for suffering comes from pride. After all, he thinks that he is supposed to be awarded, paid, and elevated for the sufferings. This comes from a misunderstanding of the entire system of reality.

The Creator is called good that does good, and He wishes us good as well. The purpose of creation is in receiving pleasure, and the Creator created creatures in order to delight them. And if you feel something unpleasant at some moment, you should use this feeling to move forward and justify the Creator by staying in an absolutely good state.

We cannot kiss and love the stick that beats us; it is a deception and hypocrisy. If a person works correctly, he rises with the help of the environment and a new scale of values because he appreciates the quality of bestowal more and more each time. He uses every moment; when there is an opportunity to rise, he sees that he has not yet reached the full sensation of perfection; he is imprisoned in bestowal of the Creator who is absolutely good. He doesn’t calm down for a moment as his goal is to give pleasure to the father without caring about his own pleasant and unpleasant sensations. He keeps advancing by using his good and bad impressions to find out what else could be improved to reach bestowal.

So the person keeps moving, rising above the darkness and discomfort each time it occurs. After all, they point to his remoteness from and lack of adhesion with the Creator. Thus he is grateful for all of these discoveries; these are sinners that are revealed in him, which he can overcome and rise above toward adhesion with the Creator.

And then, all this revealed evil will become a blessing, a gift for him. He will welcome the darkness with gladness by preparing himself to it in a proper environment in advance. Every moment the darkness becomes revealed in his senses and mind, he will look for something that is left uncorrected.

He doesn’t look for suffering; he looks for black details in his perception in order to correct them. After all, he prepared to be corrected in advance and he doesn’t suffer in vain, which is simply silly.

Here is an entirely different calculation with respect to all the events happening to a man in the world. He sees everything as a means in order to rise above disturbances and reach merging with the Creator. It means that he is climbing the Creator’s mountain. Throughout his journey, he is wary of any unpleasant feeling lasting longer than a moment and then rises above it due to the high importance. After all, a person perceives it as a sign or a springboard for elevation, an opportunity to justify the Creator, to rise above this feeling toward bestowal. And this depends on the importance of the goal and the greatness of the Creator. Then he will highly appreciate the means, which become revealed to him in an opposite, negative form, giving him an opportunity to build himself.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/11/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Letter 8”

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We have to understand that there are only two states in our life, in our reality: a state of darkness, a shade, or a state of Light, connection, the revelation of the good and the benevolent. There is nothing in between. If by hearing about it a person constantly tries to clarify the states he goes through, whether it is a shade or the revelation of the Creator, he will advance by the middle line.

Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article 8: “What is the Difference Between the Shade of Kedusha and the Shade of Sitra Achra“: “Instead, all the changes are in the receivers. We must observe two discernments in this shade…”

The first is when a person can still unite with the friends, by overcoming the thoughts about separation and the “blurring” of the senses. He can still overcome the darkness and the concealment; he still understands that he has lost the goal, the way to the Creator.

But on the whole, no one conducts actual self-criticism, “Why do I feel this way? Where is this feeling coming from?” I am not my own psychologist, I simply feel good or bad, like a child. I don’t calculate who sends me these thoughts and these feelings. I “stew” in them, and sink into my body, like a small child.

Yet a person must know and examine himself: “What has summoned my feelings and my thoughts? How can I ascend above myself, above the current state? How can I get out of this swamp by pulling myself by my hair?” A person always looks at himself from the side, “Yes, I am deep in my egoistic desire. Yes, it controls me. True, it doesn’t allow me to connect, it doesn’t let me get up for the lesson, it forces me to disconnect, it makes the daily life with all its dealings seem more important. But I see that I am in this state and that it is opposite from the goal.”

How can I understand and recognize this? When I am still connected to something external, to the group. Here comes the moment of truth, I can check whether I was really connected to the group or not. If I wasn’t connected, I only feel myself: I feel bad, I don’t want anything, etc. Furthermore, I don’t even try to account for this and simply flow along without any special thoughts or desires.

But if I were connected to the group, if I had an alliance with the friends, according to which they have to help me even if I fall and turn in anther direction, the inner connections is kept, I would care about how they see me, and I wouldn’t totally forget about my commitment. They would support me and I would be able to see myself from the side and to clarify my feelings.

Thus I will be divided into two: my own self and my attitude towards the group. Only then, by holding on to the connection with the friends, will I be able to clarify and check myself and by that to start the ascent that follows the descent. Otherwise, I have no chance; I simply fall and leave. So a person can overcome the first type of shade, by justifying the current state and understanding that it was sent to him by the Creator. Then he can call the Creator for help.

Why do I turn to Him? Not in order to feel better, because then I would be asking to annul my evil inclination, which He has created, by adding the Torah as a spice for it. So I should ask for the spice, so that the power of love and bestowal, the power of connection, will come from Above and enable me to advance towards the other line.

“When one still has the ability to overcome the darkness and the concealment that one feels, justify the Creator and pray to the Creator that the Creator will open his eyes to see that all the concealments that one feels come from the Creator.”

When a person is left helpless and sees no way out, when he curses the Creator, the friends and life, he is still looking at himself from the side and suddenly sees a chance for a breakthrough, he can demand that the Creator will save him. Why? Because he does not accept the state when the Creator’s providence seems bad, and he cannot justify Him. A person feels bad because he thinks badly of the good and the benevolent, by being opposite from Him. If life seems bad, it is a sign that I am opposite from the Creator.

We have to build a Masach (screen) and the Returning Light above all the hard situations. Even in the worst situations I must see the Creator as their source, as the Light that is full of all the infinite abundance, but that is broken inside me and turns into a bad feeling, into a shade, into darkness, since my attributes are opposite from the good and the benevolent, opposite from the attribute of bestowal and love.

Thus we advance each time we clarify things correctly. The main thing is to constantly discover this point, “What do I feel? Who is sending me this feeling? Why am I experiencing this feeling?” This is the whole principle of our work and this is what divides humanity into the 1% and the 99%.
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From the Lesson from Brazil 5/03/12, Shamati #8

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Question: Our task is to transform common people’s routine desires into a plea to the Creator. How do we do that?

Answer: A mother clearly understands why her baby is crying, although the baby does not realize why he cries. The same principle applies here: We have to transform people’s desires, otherwise they won’t match the Light. People cry about troubles in their material lives, but the Light won’t respond to their complaints since He was the one who created them.

It is said: “Come to Pharaoh since I hardened his heart.” It’s the Creator who arranges our troubles and I cannot ask Him to release us from hardships, why then would He have sent them? We have to refer to Him with a different request—our appeal to help us rise above our woes and allow us to choose going through anguishes because only by doing so can we perceive Him. This is how we rise to bestowal beyond receiving.

But we are incapable of achieving this state! We are deeply sunk in egoism; we suffer; we strive to at least rid ourselves of pain as we are unable to sense enjoyment.

We should demand from Him: “Give me the power that allows me to stay above my pain.” We particularly need to be aware of our unwillingness to experience pain and our desire to stay above it: Let my body suffer, but I still can be a step higher than my body; affliction will help me escape my egoistic desires. If suffering vanishes, I will return to the Pharaoh; however, if affliction persists, I will do anything in my power to try to avoid pain.

So, suffering is a necessary prerequisite to make me run away from the Pharaoh, from my egoism. But where do I run? I beg the Creator for deliverance: “Give me a chance to escape and rise above the Pharaoh.” Even though I deal with a tiny part of the common evil, this is the kind of work that I have to do consciously. My job is not to stay a miserable animal, but rather to rise to the level of a human being. I have to realize that the human is higher than the animate level. We should draw a rigid and obvious line of separation between these two states.

• The animal in me suffers. Let it suffer! It’s just my egoism, it’s Pharaoh, with all its pain and darkness that thickens to the degree of the “Egyptian darkness.”
• I am above suffering striving for bestowal.

But where do I get energy to accomplish this? I am so weak that I run away from the slightest pain. The more I advance spiritually, the more sensitive I become, and things that were quite easy for me previously turn out to be unbearable. I cannot tolerate anything at all, even physical trouble.

This is what we work diligently with: We strive to rise above our desires through which we tend to suffer more and more. We find Egyptian darkness in the place where there previously was the Light, but in fact nothing changes except our assessment of events.

This is how “good” Pharaoh becomes “bad”; a bright sunny day turns into unbearable darkness.

Such a state seems exceedingly dreary and gloomy to us; we have to rise above the growing pain and regard suffering as help.

It is said that “Pharaoh brings the sons of Israel to deliverance,” but only on the condition that they really strive to get elevated above their egoism.

They understand that affliction helps them rise above their troubles and separate themselves from egoism since nobody is able to voluntarily approach suffering; instinctively, people retreat from trouble as far away as possible.

So, the Pharaoh helps me by pushing me away, whereas the Creator helps me by hardening the heart of the Pharaoh. My task is to ask the Creator to grant me power to stay above and to regard bestowal more important than receiving.

Otherwise, I will simply be crying out in pain like a person who is not focused on growing and instead sobs about the multiple problems in his life. This is what we see today while the humanity is going through a crisis. People have nowhere to go; they are helpless, and therefore, they don’t want to know anything, “Give us an anti-depressant, alcohol, painkillers, sedatives, drugs” – whatever helps them disconnect from their pain.

We ask the Creator to keep us above our pain so it doesn’t deafen us, but rather, gives us another shape. Our work is to plead: “Give me a chance to bestow and enjoy it.” We shouldn’t bestow for the sake of receiving; we have to learn how to enjoy bestowal. If we do, we’ll go beyond knowledge, and attain bestowal for the sake of bestowal, thus acquiring contentment through a great sense of belonging rather than through fulfilling our egoism. It doesn’t matter if we suffer within our egoistic desires; we enjoy in our sense of belonging to Him. Those are two different kinds of vessels. Similarly, people in this world are proud and enjoy serving those who they consider worthy and great.

This is how we prepare ourselves; others will follow. In fact, an enormous desire to be pleased hides behind the “façade” of our civilization. Our goal is to correct this desire; otherwise, people will continue to suffer uselessly.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/12, “Questions and Answers Regarding the Brazil Congress”

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In the News (from Bloomberg): “The worst may be yet to come in the global financial crisis as the central bank spending that kept defaults low runs out, according to Deutsche Bank AG. (DBK).

“‘If these implied defaults come vaguely close to being realised then the next five years of corporate and financial defaults could easily be worse than the last five relatively calm years,’ the analysts in London said. ‘Much may eventually depend on how much money-printing can be tolerated as we are very close to being maxed out fiscally.’

“Default rates stayed in line with historical norms between 2007 and 2011 because of the ‘unprecedented intervention’ of European and U.S. policy makers, the analysts wrote in the report yesterday.

“Although defaults have been low, recoveries are falling because the public spending that kept non-payments down has failed to spur economic growth, according to the analysts.

“‘The LTROs [long-term refinancing operations] gave us some respite but they don’t appear to have taken the problem away,’ Burns said in a phone interview. ‘At the moment there are no more LTROs on the table.’”

My Comment: Will we really fail to convey to the analysts an opportunity to correct the global economy through changing the relationships in society? How much suffering do people have to go through so that political and financial authorities understand that the only opportunity to correct the crisis is through social relations? The vast majority of scientists talk about it, but as usual, the government doesn’t want to listen and acts in their narrow egoism.
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Question: We have received an enormous credit from the upper world, which is the addition of all our desires, and everyone has received an enormous desire and an even greater aspiration for spirituality, which I would have never managed to receive on my own.

In the corporeal world, different societies have different ways of managing people who are not able to pay their debt: Guards, the police, and the militia can come, a person can be imprisoned, and he can even be physically destroyed. How does this happen in spirituality? What will happen to us if we fail to return this enormous debt of trust?

Answer: If a person in our world has so many ways to obligate another person to pay his debt either through the government or one way or another, then do you think the Creator has fewer ways? He has many more ways to do it. There is no problem; He will force you to do it.

This is the essence of the path of suffering: If you fail to achieve the goal in the right, beneficial, convenient, comfortable, and quick manner and to do something new every day; in other words, if you fail to “pay your debt,” then in the end you stop feeling it for two or three days, but then everything accumulates and starts to work.

This is why we must understand this very clearly and fear it, really fear it, because the Prophets have written very horrible things. When obligating forces begin to push us from behind toward the initial, set goal of creation and it does not happen through our voluntary drive forward, this is felt as horrible suffering, because they are given to us on the still, vegetative, and animate levels to help us understand that we need to move to a higher human level.

And the transition from one level to another is very difficult! You see how much the entire world suffers and does not understand that it needs to simply make a small movement upward. It does not understand! And it will continue to starve, die, and destroy one another—billions of poor people will be dying and will not be able to understand this.

This is why we need to try to quickly explain this to ourselves and to all the rest.
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From the Virtual Lesson 2/26/12

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If we are in our desire to receive yearning only to receive a filling, we don’t feel that there is something else outside our desire. We only understand that there is a void in us that must be filled and that feels that it is empty. As long as our desire doesn’t receive all the filling, it will not calm down. It is like a crying baby that doesn’t calm down until he receives everything that he needs.

How can we teach such a desire to receive another pleasure, pleasure from bestowal? It doesn’t even understand what it is, and cannot feel and do such a thing. But gradually we begin to teach it according to a plan.

The whole study is based on the readiness to suffer, because the desire needs to give up its filling, to give up the desire for the filling, to give up the feeling of the self, the self pride, the envy, the respect, and the control, which means its independence.

At first a person thinks that he can correct himself, until he sees that it is impossible, and that it can only be realized by the upper force. He learns from failing all the time. Thus he is taught that he should lower his head and ask, ask for the one thing that he doesn’t want. Then he receives help and changes, becoming his opposite, by beginning to enjoy what was hateful before.

We have to go through this whole process in understanding, in recognition, in agreement, in our feelings and in the mind, in our consciousness. Everything you were proud of before and considered respectable, now seems the opposite, and you discover your lowliness and your helplessness. Our desire to receive, which doesn’t know anything but to fill itself, feels all this when it learns about a totally new method.

This process takes place according to the three symbols: “Pesach” (Passover), “Matzah,” and “Maror” (bitter herb). It is called “Pesach” from the Hebrew root to skip, as a person constantly jumps from one side to its opposite, and so he turns his small measures of receiving into bestowal. He does that by Matzah, “the bread of affliction,” since he has no other food and he agrees to settle for what he receives from bestowal.

A person constantly raises the importance of bestowal, while his desire to receive only gets the “bitter herb.” Thus he raises the right line, the Matzah, over the left line, the bitter herb, like a hero who overcomes the bitter taste and wants to turn it to the sweetness of bestowal. Then he reaches Pesach, the changing of his consciousness.

By the new attitude towards the desire to receive, that doesn’t change, he builds the human in him. “Adam” (Man) is what is built above the desire. This is the system that begins to work according to the new principle with the same natural attributes, but by using them in order to bestow.

The mechanism, that is created by that is made of all the person’s actions and exertions as he overcomes his desire to receive, is what is called “Adam.” All this is done by the three special components that symbolize the holiday of freedom from the ego, Pesach, that are called Pesach, Matzah, and bitter herb.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/10/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: As I see it, people left without a job sink into their problems and this gives them no incentive to find out where the problems are coming from.

Answer: Our ego feels suffering within itself. The suffering is constantly increasing and taking different forms. Why do they push a person to ask about the meaning of life? It is because he is asking: “Why do I need to suffer?” Actually, they may bring him to the point of suicide.

What is the wisdom of Kabbalah doing? It says to a person: You have to replace this suffering with other suffering, the so-called “suffering of love.”

Indeed, when you love someone, yearn for him, but you still are not connected to him yet, or you are being rejected, turned down a little, or distance separates you and for now you can’t see him, then a big desire to come close, to connect, and to embrace appears, but it is impossible.

All of this is also suffering! But they are sweet for us; we do not want to get rid of them.

Personally, I cannot imagine such suffering anymore, but I remember them from when I was young, and they were sweet. So on one hand, you love, yearn, and anticipate that soon you will embrace your beloved one, but at the same time, you suffer because it still hasn’t happened, and this is pleasant suffering.

There is suffering that comes from the ego, and it is called the “shadow of the Sitra Achra,” meaning a bad shadow, darkness, which hides all the good in the world. And there is suffering that pushes you forward, and, on the contrary, you are excited, you are living in the expectation that it will happen soon: In front of you is the Light, the Light of love, the Light of the impending meeting. Light and darkness, this is the whole difference.

We need to quickly help the world replace their suffering, great hardships, and problems that will intensify more and more with a yearning for connection, for love, for the Light. Then, we will feel that the sufferings do not disappear. It’s because if you meet your loved one, and all the attraction you felt at the time of separation disappears, then nothing will be left for you except disappointment: You met, and after few minutes you don’t need anything else, and you can leave.

Therefore, it is necessary that this suffering, meaning this attraction, this appetite, this hunger, will stay, and at the same time, you will be able to enjoy it. Usually when you are very hungry and you start to eat, the appetite disappears and you do not enjoy the food. And what if the pleasure would not disappear?

That is, we need to keep our suffering and only transform it. Hence under no circumstances should we ask the Creator for anything except correction. We must not ask Him to take away our suffering, but only to change it so that we will feel the suffering of love instead, eagerness to go forward. Then we will live in excitement.
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From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 4

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