On one hand, nature treats me lovingly. Even if I can’t see this with the naked eye, when penetrating a bit deeper, I can see its true attitude. People who are close to nature feel that it is entirely good.

At the same time, externally it is very harsh, similar to a loving but demanding father who scrupulously takes a child through the phases of development. That is how we must view what is happening. Otherwise we won’t understand good and evil and will only get confused.

If I want to feel nature this way, then I must reject the externality and immerse myself inwards. Precisely from nature’s external attitude, which seems negative to me, I must start to develop based on the realization of evil. In reality nature is showing me a negative of myself. By correcting it, I will enter inside and will feel its love.

All the negative external phenomena are intended to show me what I must correct in order to attain love. It’s exactly how parents raise a child: The father looks at him with a strict gaze and the mother is nervous. It’s very hard to recognize their love. But this is the discernment that I have to be very sensitive to while developing the inner feeling of the realization of evil.

Perhaps I don’t notice the negative. The parents are only giving me hints, but I don’t understand what they want from me or perhaps I don’t feel that they need something from me at all. Instead I continue fooling around. Then they tell it to me directly, but I still don’t listen. At the end, after all the persuasions and warnings, the troubles start, and that is something I understand very well. “Why didn’t you tell me that right away?” I wonder.

This is the problem of all of us and of each of us separately – a lack of sensitivity. If I now felt what I lack in order to discern nature’s love, then I would immediately correct myself. Therefore, we have to take care of just one thing – our receptivity to the realization of evil between us and to the love coming from the Creator.

We don’t lack examples. Open your eyes and you will see them. So what is standing in our way? The problem is that the world does not imbue us with a basic attitude to goodness. I need a society or environment in which I will reveal goodness and compare it to my own evil.

The realization of evil begins the moment a person feels that he is worse than those around him. He sees them all as interconnected and united by love for one another, but he cannot join them and feel that he shares that unity. This gap is the evil that a person has to reveal and correct.

By realizing the evil and by trying to correct it, a person discovers that he does not have the slightest shred to grab hold of or the slightest access. He clearly sees that the friends are united and he is separated from them, and he does not see any opportunity to join them, having no loophole into their unity. For that he needs the Light that reforms. Only the Creator’s help will save him.

That is where we finally come in contact with the unity of Israel, the Torah, and the Creator.
[39216]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/27/11 on Global Education

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Israel, Love, Society, Suffering, Torah, Unity - No Comments →

Question: How can I help the friends who leave the group?

Answer: They need help understanding that all of the evil becomes revealed to us on purpose. Yet, we get stuck on the bad feeling and don’t see anything besides it. We need to recognize the source of the evil: Where does it come from and why, and what inside of me is supposed to wake up through it?

However, when the evil is revealed, a person forgets everything. I admit that I feel the same way despite my 30 year experience in Kabbalah. That’s because a new, higher rung is being revealed, which is described by the verse, “There is no righteous man on earth who did good and never sinned.” First you fall into sin, meaning that everything you had achieved is erased inside of you and you are cast into this world as if there isn’t any spiritual world.

It is written about Rabbi Shimon that before he ascended to the end of correction, he fell so low that he felt as a mere Shimon trading at the market, or a person who falls so low, he feels only evil and has to sensation of the Creator or the spiritual world.

Even if you are at the high rungs in the world of Atzilut, when you are in the gap between them you still fall to this world, to the same animate level as all the rest of the people. And this happens so you may start climbing up again. Therefore, a person needs to receive the explanation that all of our feelings are given to us from above for a reason. If evil and hate toward others are revealed inside him, it is that very Mount Sinai (Sinah, hatred) which we has to rise over. Everything becomes revealed for a certain purpose and nothing occurs accidentally.

What is the point of giving us all kinds of feelings for no reason, such as love for someone or hatred? We all undergo only one process, and all the problems and wars that arise in the world are given solely in order for us to find the place of our breaking and to mandate us to have it reformed.
[39043]
From the lesson on Writings of Rabash on 3/25/11

Filed under: Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A, Spirituality, Suffering - No Comments →

Question: Can I motivate myself to unite with the friends by means of fear of suffering that will come in the future?

Answer: Suffering doesn’t affect the point in the heart! It affects my egoistic desire, my “donkey”! But it does not affect the human in me, my point in the heart. A person can only advance spirituality by moving forward out of his own free will.

Therefore, if I don’t develop the inner aspiration to move forward, meaning that I want to build the storage place for the upper Light with the help of the group, then I evolve as a mere animal that is being “kicked,” through suffering. These strikes make me contemplate: Why are they coming down on me, what did I do to deserve them, and why? Then I will probably start linking my point in the heart with the others.

Question: But how do I scare the human in me so I would get it to advance?

Answer: If you suddenly heard on the radio that our country is about to be covered by a radioactive cloud, your “animal” would start shaking at such tragic news. And you can receive a similar from the group.

However, we do not speak about what will happen to us because we do not advance by way of fear. We wish to move ahead by becoming conscious of the importance of the spiritual goal. The importance of the goal is quite virtual, intangible, and depends on how we depict it within. If we keep envisioning the goal as increasingly more exalted, then we will advance in accordance with that.

In other words, I am like a rabbit that runs after a carrot that is held in front of it on a string. Moreover, a human in me holds both the carrot and the string, while my “animal” is chasing it.
[39117]
From the lesson on Writings of Rabash on 3/18/2011

Related Material:
Emptiness Is Our Construction Site
The Solution Is Between Us
Don’t Be Afraid, We’re With You!

Filed under: Egoism, Free Will, Group Work, Q&A, Suffering - No Comments →

On the path we reveal various flaws, and that is how it should be. However, it is a completely different matter when I am able to accept them with understanding by virtue of my preparation and the support I receive from the environment. Then I will see the flaws as a kind of exercise. And an exercise is no longer a bad thing.

When encountering a problem, I don’t panic, feeling weak and confused. On the contrary, I know that I have been given this problem in order to overcome it and receive a reward. It does not trip me so I fall down and does not cut me off from the path to goodness.

The entire matter lies in the preparation, which enables me to see everything as a chance for advancement, rather than an avalanche of troubles that we want to run away from or even to end our own lives.

The aim at the goal decides everything. If I am in a caring environment, then it “brainwashes me” and explains that all the defects are being revealed as exercises for a person who wishes to grow. Then I use them in order to advance. Moreover, I am happy about the flaws that become revealed.

And vice versa, without the appropriate upbringing, without the support and help of the environment, I cannot correct and turn every flaw into a trampoline for leaping forward. Instead of this, I am always immersed in evil.

In this regard humanity faces free choice: How to accept everything that becomes revealed on the path? If I recognize the problems in advance, if I prepare an environment for myself and desire to advance forward, then the flaws are revealed gently. I already understand them, am ready for them, and accept them as signs of advancement.

Question: What defects are you talking about? About the realization of evil inside of oneself, or about tsunamis and other natural disasters?

Answer: If you prepare, then you no longer need a tsunami. Then the flaws will not be troubles for you, but challenges. They won’t be unresolved problems, but tasks. Similarly, a diligent child does not need strict measures. Instead we let him gather a Lego or puzzle, and so on. He does not receive a difficult life from us, but exercises which he likes. Even if they make him sweat a bit, they also give him pleasure.
[39000]

Filed under: Free Will, Inner Work, Q&A, Suffering - 1 Comment →

Let us hope that by virtue of our efforts we will sweeten the Gevurot, the harsh events that require us to overcome them, which are being revealed in the world today. We have to think about this and make efforts.

A big convention in North America will begin soon where we will try to exert a positive influence on the world through our powerful unity. The right approach is very important here. “A positive influence” does not mean that we will eliminate all the bad occurrences. We cannot eliminate them or correct them. Rather, we have to take care to ensure that people advance toward mutual bestowal, to interconnection. Then, as a result of that interconnection, the earth will calm down as well, all the problems and revolutions will become resolved, and so on.

Don’t come forward against nature, trying to prevent the disasters. This is an incorrect prayer and it will never happen this way. Instead, turn to the cause of the troubles, to the source of the natural occurrences. The problem is inside of us, and therefore we have to correct our own states. That’s all there is to it.

We have to unite as much as possible and wish for our unity to be the means for the whole world to advance toward the same thing. Then everything will immediately calm down, including the occurrences happening right now, as well as the troubles that await us in the future in order to incite us to attain correction.
[38598]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/20/11, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Filed under: Conventions, Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Suffering, Unity, World - No Comments →

During the expansion of the Light from above downwards from Keter, to Hochma, and to Bina, a stop should have happened because Bina is already the quality of bestowal that does not need anything for itself. So how is it possible to develop any further?

That is when Bina feels the desire of the Creator that is in Keter, the desire to unite. Thus, Bina divides into GAR and ZAT, which feels a connection with Keter and therefore develops reception within itself in order to bestow to the lower ones. Otherwise further development would not take place.

In the same way, when we ascend upwards and attain Bina, first we acquire Galgalta Eynaim, the quality of bestowal for the sake of bestowal, Hafetz Hesed, which is called Mordechai. That is when we have to decide how to use our desire to enjoy. For us, this is ZAT de Bina, connected to our Malchut of the Reflected Light, the highest Sefira that attains Keter of the Direct Light.

This is the point where a decision has to be made. This makes the difference of how the desires of Haman are to be used—egoistically or for the sake of bestowal. If we begin to bestow egoistically, then we return back down. And if we choose bestowal, then we use the desires of Haman with the intention of Mordechai, meaning we receive for the sake of bestowal.

This is the “fatal point” of Purim. Pur means “lot” or “fate,” when we decide: What to do next? That is, we have to decide: In which direction will we incline? But this is impossible to understand for now. We do not see all of our qualities from aside, besides Mordechai. In all other directions besides him, only total darkness awaits us. This is the true point of a person’s choice and it is very thin. After all, how can I understand that bestowal for my own sake was not part of the Creator’s program?

That is why we have to reach the very end until we see that Haman buries all of the bestowal we have attained. Otherwise we won’t feel that this quality disappears. We have to feel that if we give power to Haman, then nothing will remain of our bestowal!

The same thing happens to us now as well. Sometimes we become so confused that we think that by making some sort of actions we will be able to reach the goal. We still don’t feel that this completely separates us from our foundation, from bestowal, and nothing remains here besides egoism, and all of our bestowal is also done for our own sake. Only if we verify this until the very end will we be able to decide that we have to annihilate Haman and come out of his power.

At first it seems that this was useful for our progress toward the goal, but now you reveal that everything is completely opposite and it can bury your entire advancement, goal, and your entire path. But you only discover this at the very end, when you are walking along together with egoism, Haman, and it slightly steals little portions from you, taking away everything you have, until you are left with nothing. That’s when you see that there is no choice: You have to run away from his rule.

We are yet to go through such suffering on this path where Haman can clothe into real people or just ideas….
[38646]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/20/11, Shamati

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Free Will, Holidays, Suffering - 1 Comment →

Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”: The collective and the individual are one and the same. And the individual is not harmed because of his enslavement to the collective, since the freedom of the collective and the freedom of the individual are one and the same, too. And as they share the good, they also share the freedom.

This becomes revealed gradually, from negation, from a negative. It becomes revealed in darkness, without forcing people to become corrected, or in other words, only in the form of suffering in order to enable us to understand, realize, and agree out of our own free choice with what we have to do and how we should accept the laws of nature.

We shouldn’t accept them instinctively or due to having no other way to act, the way it is done on the still, vegetative, and animate levels, but rather by agreement and desire. We have to desire it to such a degree that even if we weren’t pressed by suffering, we would still aspire to it.

That is why the suffering becomes revealed to us. It brings us to an empty place where we begin the search and this way, from within this darkness we build the divine system ourselves. Finding myself in a vacuum, I find threads and interconnections, building blocks of the future construction, and begin to arrange them on their right places.

I build a building and in the process of this construction I feel Nature by my side which already exists. But it’s as if I form its system myself, expressing it in bestowal, in darkness.

That is how I create and acquire the entire system of the universe. And then I understand the entire reality to the last detail, I understand and feel the force that created it, and I join the Creator until reaching total perfection.

However, I perceive the process of construction as suffering. I am pressured in order to make me start thinking: How can I fill the emptiness, what should the structure of the system be like? I have to search for the form of every linkage joint in it. Kabbalists write to us about the intention for the sake of bestowal and we say smart things at the lesson about the right approach to life, but we do not know how to actualize all of this. Even if you memorize all the texts by heart, this won’t help you.

Only by attracting the Light that reforms do I become a bit wiser in my corrected qualities and understand how to build the system. I am its material and therefore I begin to treat others correctly. This is my construction. This way, I correct myself and build the system.

Therefore, now and in the future we will only receive negative impulses, meaning suffering. Nothing can be given to us besides suffering because otherwise we would be deprived of the opportunity to gather the system on our own.

And that means that by disseminating the science of Kabbalah and explaining these things to the world, we will be able to reduce the extent of the suffering and the time required to “digest” its influence on us. No matter what, regardless of how much a person listens and how much knowledge he obtains, this will never deprive him of the opportunity to personally participate in building the system.

We have to gather all the parts of the world of infinity into one, and we have to do so ourselves. You cannot just simply shout, “Give me perfection!” You have to know what exactly is necessary for that, and what exactly do you want according to your level. On various phases of the path you scream differently—but you scream to be given the forces.
[38114]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/15/11

Related Material:
What You Have Inside Is What You Get Outside
Spiritual Freedom Of An Individual
A Means Of Last Resort

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Kabbalah Dissemination, Kabbalah Study, Suffering - No Comments →

We live in a unified reality that is called Elokim (God), the Upper One, bestowal. It is upper in the sense that is exceeds our force. This is a more powerful and more dominant force, which formed the reality in which we constitute one whole.

Imagine a huge drop of water in free fall. Because there is no force of gravity or mutual attraction of molecules, an entire bucket of water can be one drop there. That is how we are interconnected in a common “drop” without any of the differences that we imagine here.

This drop, one desire and one Light, begins to compulsively be permeated from above by the force of disunity. The Light exerts pressure on the desire and makes an imprint in it, its opposite. Then the common single desire suddenly feels that it crumbles, falls apart, and divides into many different parts.

This breaking is actualized by the force of the Light, which disperses the initial drop into billions of separate splashes. They separate from one another and a reverse imprint of the Creator emerges in them—Pharaoh, egoism, the evil inclination, impurity—instead of the force of unity called “holiness” that reigned between them.

Now our attitude to one another is opposite to our higher state, the Creator. The correction lies in understanding that we are disunited deliberately so we would desire to unite and reveal the initial state in which the quality of the Creator—bestowal, love, and unity—reigns among us.

Our work lies only in discerning the appropriate desire or necessity. By desiring to return, I come back to perfection, one level after another. That is why we are all dispersed and separated by hatred, meaning the opposite side of the Creator, darkness, the reverse side of the Light. From this darkness we have to reveal the desire that aspires to Light.

The way to reveal it is by means of various kinds of impulses that awaken me, coming to me from within and from outside. I need these “irritants.” However, afterward I have to put in my own efforts both in feeling and reason. As a result I discern that the state of unity that was created for us by the Creator as the only existing state is the best state.

Our current state, the reality on the opposite side which divides us, is undesirable because its force disconnects us from one another. And it disconnects us in a special way, cunningly and shrewdly, evoking all sorts of collisions between us, problems, and negative impulses in order to awaken us to search for goodness.

We begin with the material level and then shift to the spiritual search. In the end, we prefer one over the other. It’s as if the Creator tells us: “Take My opposite side. Stay separated and disunited, that doesn’t matter. Most importantly, enjoy it.” But we have to work on preferring His front side, His revelation over our own fulfillment. Our task is to make a special analysis in order to return to the state where we are together in His quality that reigns in us—the quality of unity.

In order to awaken us to ascend from the sensation of the current reality of this world, we are sent various negative impulses such as tsunamis, revolutions, wars, fires, the economic crisis, and so on. All of this is intended for us to feel uncomfortable on our material level, in our current desires (Kelim), and to feel how shaky our existence is.

This will push us to search for other states, and then besides feelings, we will also activate the mind, “What do we have? How can we get to a better state?” We will make the analysis: “What has already been tried? What should we try?” Maybe we will stop lying to one another and maybe we really will start searching for a solution without allowing various parties to get credit at our expense and immerse us into graver crises.

That is how all together we will discern the current situation and look for a better state.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/14/11

Related Material:
Change Your Thoughts And You Will See A Different World!
The Protection From All Troubles
If You Don’t Wake Up, Tomorrow Everyone Will Be Asleep

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Suffering, Unity, World - 1 Comment →

Question: What should our attitude be to the natural disasters we are witnessing as well as to other problems?

Answer: We are living in a special time when our egoistic desire is starting to show us our imbalance with nature on all its levels.

The lowest level of nature is the still level, where we are now revealing our imbalance and disharmony with general nature. And the same is true for the following levels: the vegetative and animate levels of nature. We just don’t notice it for now.

We are in a terrible crisis, a “relationship crisis” with an angel called “Domem” (still), as well as an angel called “Tzomeah” (vegetative), and the angel called “Hai” (animate). All of these forms of nature are at an enormous lack of correspondence and opposition to us. Our obligation is to correct them because only man can correct all the rest of nature by correcting himself.

Therefore, the catastrophes we see around us are our own reflection. All of the responsibility is ours. There is nothing to ask from the still, vegetative, and animate levels of the world. They ascend and descend together with man.

By the problems in the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature that surround us, we can see how much we are uncorrected. All of these catastrophes are a reflection or demonstration of our own flaws, not to mention the “speaking” level of nature—human society. Look at what is happening in the world.

We have the opportunity to organize a life of true paradise for ourselves on this earth, but look at what we are doing instead. If a visitor from outer space would look at what we are doing on the planet Earth, he would think that we are simply crazy. Where is our human mind and feelings? Is this really how a thinking, intelligent human arranges his life? Only a total fool or self-hater would do such a thing.

That is to say, right now we are gradually revealing our true inner state. And only through the inner correction will we attain harmony with the external world.
[37909]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/13/11

Related Material:
The Solution Is Between Us
How To Forestall The Blows Of Nature
All The Earthquakes Are Inside Us

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Q&A, Suffering, World - No Comments →

Question: Humanity cannot connect the ecological catastrophes to the correction of egoism. How can we explain this connection to people?

Answer: We have to look for ways to do it and try to write articles and formulate explanations precisely during times of disaster in order to convey the essence: All of this is happening because we are not corrected.

The external world is a mold of our inner state. Therefore, in reality we are talking about inner catastrophes that we only perceive as external. All the nations are parts of one soul, but in our sensations they are divided parts that seem foreign.

It’s as if I have been given an injection of  local anesthesia and now I don’t feel how my leg is burning or how my arm is being cut off. Right now it sounds funny, but that is what is happening.

Therefore, I want the sensation of belonging to gradually come back to me. I want to feel the “external” parts as my own. I hope to receive the opportunity to correct my state, my attitude to others.

If the external reality really will become a part of me, then I will feel a horrible sensation. Therefore, together with the discovery of the illness I have to receive the medicine, the opportunity to improve my state. This is what I am asking for: the medicine together with the illness that becomes revealed. Then I will be able to correct the flaws in myself, and as a result, the “external” cataclysms will settle down.

This is what we have to do: Ask for inner correction which will evoke the correction that seems external. Then we will see all the problems in ourselves and will correct them in us. These desires (Kelim) will unite with us, will become inner, and all the natural disasters evoked by our inner lack of correction will cease.
[37934]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbaalh Lesson 3/13/11

Related Material:
“These Are My Children”
Go With The Flow Of Nature
Apocalypse 2010

Filed under: Collective Soul, Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Inner Work, News, Perception, Q&A, Suffering, World - No Comments →