If we start advancing the right way and become integrally connected with one another and with all parts of the universe, then we will start understanding the world on a new level. We will ascend above this tiny world that we now perceive in our ego, where each person perceives individually, and we will begin revealing a new world—one that is eternal and perfect. We will feel it on a level called “Human,” instead of perceiving the world only on the animate level through our bodies.

I will begin perceiving myself on the level of the integral existence, connected with everyone by a single consciousness, one thought, common thinking, one desire and sensation. Then I will perceive everything happening to my animate body as a level beneath myself and my new consciousness.

Now, while existing on the level of the animate body, I do not feel pain from things taking place on the still or animate levels, such as when cutting my hair and nails. Likewise, when I ascend to the human level and enter the common, global level of thought, desire, and awareness, I won’t feel how this animate body lives or dies because I will perceive myself in a higher dimension.

We are now at the transition between these two levels and it is not simple at all. Yet, the more we begin to gain awareness of it, focusing our vision on the true world in which we already exist, the easier it will be for us to perform this transition from our present state to a higher, global, integral level in order to make it quick and simple.

Then we won’t have to go through problems, blows, suffering, cataclysms, and revolutions that have already begun happening, but will advance by a gentle, wonderful path ahead of time, before the cataclysm takes place. We will do it by making corrections in human society.

We can gain all of this by studying the science of Kabbalah, which is intended to help us rise from this egoistic, individualistic world into the integral world. Let us hope that we will be able to do this. This is essentially the purpose of the science of Kabbalah.
[34684]
From my lecture in Paris on 2/1/11

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Shamati #1, And only if that person has a true desire will he receive help from Above. And he is constantly shown how he is at fault in his present state.

What is the help from Above? It is that you are constantly pushed into your own inner filth, into your egoism, and are shown your own insignificance. This is what the Creator does: He constantly shows a person a huge, black darkness inside of himself, a garbage dump in his thoughts, desires, intentions, and calculations.

Why? It is only in order for him to come to need the Creator, to bring him to a state where he will no longer be able to stand his own stench. To do this, it is necessary to constantly pull him out of this feeling and to show him a different existence—one that is slightly higher, lighter, and higher than his egoism. Then he once again has to be shoved face-first into his own egoism: Look at yourself, see who you are. And then he once again has to be slightly pulled out of that swamp, and then once again thrust head down.

That is how everything happens until a person comes to feel that he really does not have any “holiness” or spiritual purity, and that everything comes only from his personal, small, egoistic being that was created in him and in which he was created.

Although he occasionally receives awakening from Above, which momentarily revives him, but soon after he falls into the place of baseness.

Of course, all of these are the Creator’s actions. But that doesn’t matter because a person feels them upon himself and inside himself. All we are is the sensation. There is nothing else in us besides sensation and we realize only what we feel. The mind only accompanies the feeling.

However, this is what causes him to come to [finally] realize that only the Creator can help and really bring him closer [to perfection]. This need or demand for perfection gradually ripens inside us precisely from these opposite states.
[34357]
From the 4th lesson of the Berlin Convention on 1/29/11

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Shamati #1, “There is none else beside Him” Not only does he not progress in his [spiritual] work [and does not see any clearance ahead], but [it seems to him that] he regresses, that is, he lacks the strength to observe [the Creator’s will] even “for his own sake,” [while it is the Creator who pushes him forward].

We don’t create a real egoistic desire that is able to overcome anything. Instead, we start experiencing weakness, indifference, and our operation by automatic pilot. “Let happen whatever will.” We just go with the flow. Sometimes things are a bit better and sometimes a bit worse.

That only by genuinely overcoming all the obstacles, above reason, can he [advance forward]. What does “genuinely overcoming above reason” mean? It’s when in spite of one’s desire and thoughts, without having any predisposition to do so, a person begins to connect to the teacher, the group, and the books. Altogether this is all called “the environment” or the surroundings.

But even in this case, when he begins to connect to them, he is still thrown about, up and down and in relation to the teacher, the group, and the sources or books. Sometimes he wants to and sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he believes it and sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he’s sick and tired of it, and sometimes he strives forward, and so on.

As the difficulties mount, a person starts to feel that there is nothing attractive or special on this path, and nothing motivates him to advance. There is no spark, nothing really worth giving up his life, career, and success for.

As a result, a person falls. His fall is serious, real, deep, and pretty lengthy. Thus, he reaches the final decision that not the group, nor the teacher, nor the books, nor exertion—nothing will help him in the world besides the only governing force, the Creator.

All the times that a person fell and rose, all the states that passed over him were all in order for him to feel total and absolute dependence on no one but the Creator. Imagine how much a person has to be beaten from all sides, shaken up, pushed away and attracted, and shown the existence of a great number of forces and various causes for his states so that in the end he would become convinced that there is nothing besides the one, single Force. If it doesn’t help me, then no one will. Only it will come to my rescue if I demand it.

That is when the following need arises in a person: for the Creator to definitely help him. The formation of this demand is also very not simple. It does not happen in one moment, but it gradually surges up in a person, becoming vividly expressed, fierce, and persistent. Like a child who demands what he wants no matter what—just give him what he wants, and you can’t convince him any other way. That is the kind of state we must reach. And in this state the Creator really does help us.

Only those people who truly want to draw near the Creator, so they will not settle for little, meaning remain as senseless children, they are therefore given help from Above, so they will not be able to say that I have everything and what else do I need?
From the 4th lesson at the Berlin Convention on 1/29/11

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Question: Why is the process of asking a question so difficult? Why is it difficult to clothe the inner processes into a verbal casing?

Answer: It’s because when a person feels pain, he screams. But he does not know exactly what is hurting him. That’s why we invite a doctor to make a diagnosis. Similarly, when a baby feels pain, he cannot say exactly where he feels the pain.

It takes a very long time to go from the inner pain, problem, or disturbance to the sensation, “What are these disturbances? Why are they happening? What is their purpose? What are they about? Where are they taking me? What should I do with them?” All of this is part of the process of one’s inner maturation.

We learn in the science of Kabbalah that the Light has to go through four phases before it builds the right desire for itself. The first thing I feel is something unfamiliar to me. Then I suddenly feel the state opposite to it—that I felt something, but now I don’t feel it. After that I go on to feeling and not feeling at the same time, and that is how an inner comparison begins. Only by comparing these two opposite sensations do I start to reach an opinion regarding what this is. After that, from the understanding of “What is this?” I start to attain the primary cause—from where did this emerge inside of me?

This is an entire succession or sequence of a person’s inner maturation where he can already come and say, “Yet, this is what is hurting me. This is why I feel bad. This is my question. This is what I demand to solve by receiving an answer.” It isn’t simple.

On our part we have to try to help him, like a baby. It doesn’t matter that he’s screaming. That means we have to go to him, pay attention, and try to figure out why he feels bad, even though he can’t even ask for this. Let’s find this common contact.

This problem exists on all the levels. If you ask me, then I go through the same thing. When we move forward, we continuously encounter something that isn’t clear: “What? Why? How? From where? Where is it connected and with what? What are the reasons and the consequences?” As this entire chain starts gradually being born, the question starts to come through. And then, from the right question follows the answer.

After that things become unclear again. I ask, “Why? What is bothering me?” Once again there’s a question and an answer.

Therefore, we have to work on the questions.
[34194]
From the 1st lesson of the Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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Question: I would like to know: Where inside me does the evil inclination reside? Is it in the heart or in the ego? How can I find it in order to get rid of it?

Answer: Baal HaSulam writes that he rejoiced about the revelation of new, evil qualities inside of him because they are not new, but are concealed in a person, and it is unknown when all of our evil, not yet revealed, will be revealed in us.

Indeed, the times when the evil becomes revealed are unpleasant. A person begins to eat himself up because he does not agree to it and does not want it. This approach also needs to be corrected.

To tell you the truth, we must only be happy when the evil becomes revealed, but not as masochists. If this evil reaches the necessary measure, then a person will explode and produce such an inner outcry, such a feeling will emerge in his heart that he will receive a revelation from Above.

Then in relation to his heart, he comes out to other people and starts feeling the spiritual world, which cannot be felt inside of you, but only in the desires of other people. However, this is a good feeling. Then a person experiences every moment as a great adventure where his desires and intentions begin opening up the world to him.
[34167]
From the lecture in “Kabalah L’Am” Hall on 12/21/10

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Question: Can Kabbalah help a person find mutual understanding between a man and woman or fix relationships in the family or at work?

Answer: No, you will not be able to create a good life for yourself in this world with the help of the science of Kabbalah. A good life will come as a result of your using all of the evil that becomes revealed in order to attain love for the neighbor and love for the Creator. Then the desires in which you feel bad will no longer emerge in you. The science of Kabbalah does not lie to a person! This is not psychology or charlatanism; it is not mysticism or a magical means to improve our lives!

Kabbalah says that the evil which becomes revealed to you is goal-oriented. It is intended to push you toward correction. You do not have to nullify the desire in which you feel bad, but rather, you have to admit that the desire is bad because of your hatred to the neighbor, and when you correct your hatred to love, you will be able to enjoy love for the neighbor and then the bad desires will no longer become revealed in you.

If you want to create a family or you are already married and a disagreement, animosity, or a misunderstanding comes up between you, that misunderstanding is impossible to correct without correcting your attitude to creation and the Creator. The Creator is between you: “Husband and wife—and the Shechina between them.”

For now the Shechina is still in exile. It becomes revealed as an evil, harmful force, the force of mutual hatred which sets you one against the other. The Creator does this deliberately so you wouldn’t connect on the previous, animate level, the way a female animal unites with a male animal in order to produce offspring, but in order for you to merge with one another as two souls into one soul and reveal the common force of bestowal that will connect you together.

If you are able to correct the relationship between you in this way, you will really become a family. Otherwise you won’t be able to do it. Kabbalah does not give you hints, solutions, or medicine for your current state, but elevates you to a new state where you will be able to be happy, successful, and perfect.

All of the suffering, problems, and blows become revealed in our world not in order to bring peace and perfection into the world, but in order to elevate us above our world. Otherwise it is similar to building communism in Russia. If you do something not for the sake of the Creator, meaning not in order to reach absolute bestowal, then you won’t achieve anything.

I feel bad, I have problems with my family, at work, with my children, and with my health, and I want to succeed in all of these areas. Kabbalah says I will feel good? Then fine, I agree to study Kabbalah! To do that I have to bestow to others? Then I’m even willing to bestow to others—anything to feel good myself.

This is called Lo Lishma (not for the Creator’s sake). This means that you know the method and you want to bring it to life for the sake of everyone so that you would also feel good. Now everything depends on what proportion you are willing to bestow to others in order to improve your state.

At first it is 1% for others and 99% for yourself. Then it’s the opposite: 99% for others and 1% for yourself until you acquire the force enabling you not to want anything for yourself. “I don’t care about what happens to me, I want to bestow to others.” This is called “bestowal for the sake of bestowal.”

However, we will never be able to return to a successful and corrected material life. All the methods that say that they can achieve this are lying, and Kabbalah tells you from the onset that this is impossible because all the evil in this life exists in order to elevate you to a new level.

Therefore, if you apply the science of Kabbalah to improve this life and you begin selling holy water or red strings, then it becomes a deadly poison. We have to understand that the reason for the general state of the world is the need to elevate us, but not to improve our situation. This is the difference between Kabbalah and other methods.

Therefore, if someone promises you a good life in this world, or health and happiness in your personal life, don’t believe it—it’s a lie and goes against nature! Nature wishes to elevate us to the “human” level. And when you aspire to this state, everything falls into place in the most wondrous way!
[34174]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/11, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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There is a very clear, sequential, and gradual movement in the spiritual world. If I don’t have the feeling of hunger, a desire for the next level, then I don’t have a Kli (vessel or quality) in order to feel it, and so I don’t feel it.

A threshold is required. I have to ascend from my present state, from desire #1, to the following state, desire #2. If I have ascended to the next level, desire #2, then I feel the source of Light that is there.

But if I still haven’t attained that desire and am somewhere in the middle, on one of the 10 intermediate levels (called 10 Sefirot), then I do not feel the next state. I have to reach the very last level, and only after passing it do I begin to feel the next state. This is a precise corpuscular method where everything is graduated by degrees just like quantum particles in an atom. And we cannot do anything about this.

Therefore, there is an intermediate state between my initial desire (in which I felt a certain kind of fulfillment and it seemed like the sun was shining) and my second desire. This intermediate state is practically felt as emptiness, hunger, and suffering. But if I know that I am advancing, that this is a cumulative process that will end and that I will reach happiness and fulfillment, then even this process is necessary in order for me to attain a new desire, and therefore it directs me forward correctly.

The sensations of the bad states, confusion, obscurity, and emptiness, drive me forward, helping me to advance faster. If I felt some kind of pleasure and fulfillment in these states, then they would push me away against my will and it would be very difficult for me to advance. I wouldn’t aspire forward out of goodness and all the things that are nice because my egoism would immediately force me to sit and relax.

Therefore, we should relate to suffering the right way, understand its goal-oriented nature, and know how to use it correctly. As soon as I connect it to the right goal, this suffering turns into anticipation of the wonderful fulfillment that is to come.

If we master this method, life will seem wonderful.
[34140]
From Lesson 1 Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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We need to understand that the solution to the modern problems is not to tame our egoism, but to rise above it. That is why the wisdom of Kabbalah isn’t so simple; it is above the level of the methods that teach how to gradually take control of and reduce one’s evil inclination.

Kabbalah says: No, you absolutely don’t need to fight your egoism. And you won’t win that war anyway because your egoism will only keep growing. Moreover, it is smarter than you and will always get away and take everything with it.

You must only learn how to turn it away from you, outward. The wisdom of Kabbalah is the science that teaches us how to work with egoism. It is a very complex science since it includes practically everything there is. It allows us to employ our egoism correctly, and because our egoism keeps growing to gain ever greater opportunities to step outside ourselves and attain what surrounds us.

It isn’t easy to explain to people that transformation does not lie in reducing one’s egoism, but rather, in applying it correctly. The more egoistic you are, the better. People don’t comprehend it, wondering, “How is this better? The more harmful I am to others, the more envious, greedy, frugal, and cunning I am, the better?” That’s right!

Yet, you find yourself asking, “How can that be good? You are wrong: We need to eliminate all these vices. A good person is someone who doesn’t have any of them.” But that’s not so! A good person is someone who has tremendous egoistic miasms, but he transforms them into a connection with others. His aspiration is not to use all his dreadful attributes in some way, but rather to recycle them into good ones. We have to recycle them, but never annihilate them.

It is even very difficult to explain this to people who are intelligent and deep-thinking. Today we are witnessing an imbalance with nature and discord in society, our personal lives, and everywhere else. Is this for the better or for the worse? It is certainly for the better! The worse, the better!

It is hard for people to understand this. This understanding can’t get through all at once. But have patience; little by little, everything will fall into place.
[34154]
From the 2nd lesson at the Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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Question: What does Kabbalah focus on and what can it give to a person?

Answer: When childhood ends, a person’s eyes gradually begin to open and he finds himself in a particular world. It is possible to live in it without giving it much thought; to simply live “like everyone else,” watching others. But possibly, a person wants to understand a bit more in life. Everything depends on a person’s internal need, which pushes him.

A person wants to discover the reality around him: his room during his childhood, then his yard, city, country, the world, the whole planet, and then he goes on to outer space. But in the end, he comes to understand that all of these attempts do not give him satisfaction.

Today humanity has even lost interest in space exploration. The only thing left of it is mercantile use for operating mobile phones via satellites or for espionage. We are no longer inspired by space travel to far-away galaxies. Man’s internal desire has changed and does not aspire to far-away, cosmic distances, but on the contrary, it aspires within.

So the question is: Where did this come from and what for? For the first time in human history, we are not simply trying to do “more,” but we first want to understand: Why should we do it? This is a question about our root: Where does everything come from? And where is it taking me?

Year after year, it becomes harder for people to sell something new, and that is because they are already satiated with everything. This does not mean that they do not have desires, but that you simply cannot give them what they want! That is why they are left unsatisfied, disillusioned, and begin taking drugs in order to forget about it all.

They need an answer about the meaning of life, and not simply how to arrange a well-fed, comfortable existence for themselves that’s pleasant for the animate body.

This can even be seen in fashion by how much simpler and free it has become. This indicates that man is becoming free of material values as he no longer sees meaning or fulfillment in them. He simply wants to feel comfortable and not feel the lack of something material, without excessively focusing on it or taking care of it.

This makes all the difference. I need a car, a house, and a thousand different things in order to live comfortably. But they are not interesting to me by themselves. I simply want to provide comfort for myself, but I actually do not need anything. They make my life easier, and that’s great, but all of this is not a goal in itself. I want to discover something else, something higher.

That’s where an inner question arises about the essence or meaning of life. A person can no longer find help in technology development, science, philosophy, or psychology; nothing will be able to answer this question. And that is because it is a question about his root: Where do I come from? Do I have a higher purpose besides this animate life?

I have already exhausted this life, but what else can I receive? One more super-fashionable toy or a TV? You can dream up any entertainment possible, but all of it comes from a level that I am no longer interested in. And I am not to blame! Inside of me there are questions awakening which belong to another level.
[33603]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/11, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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Question: Do I have to look for suffering on the spiritual path, or on the contrary, avoid it?

Answer: You should never think about suffering. If a person feels suffering, he has to know that to the degree he feels the bad sensations, he is being controlled by impurity, Klipa.

That’s because suffering does not come from the Creator. He is good and does good. Everything I feel comes from Him, even though it seems to me that I am being influenced from different directions. Thus, if my sensations are opposite to goodness, if they are unpleasant and bad, that means I am ruled by Klipa, egoistic desire, to the same measure. It neutralizes the Creator’s good influence, turning it from Light to darkness. That is why I feel bad.

Thus, the bad sensation is meant to show me how much I am immersed in evil. This has to push me to turn my sensation to goodness. And if I am in the right environment, then I can immediately achieve this. The group’s support prompts me to immediately change the bad sensation to a good one.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/11, Writings of Rabash

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