Question: Do we all have only the nature of receiving for ourselves or do we have sprouts of bestowal after all?

Answer: In each of us there is a rudimentary desire to bestow.

Question: Why does bestowal taste bitter?

Answer: Because it is against our natural desire to receive and enjoy.

Question: How can one be worthy to feel the taste of bitterness in order to prevent actions of reception for oneself?

Answer: This can be felt best among friends. By the way you treat them, you can immediately determine whether you are in reception or in bestowal.

Question: Is it possible to attract the light of the Creator by playing bestowal and subsequently become a giver?

Answer: Of course, that is how it works.
[319386]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/18/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati 16 “What Is the Day of the Lord and the Night of the Lord, in the Work?“

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Question: If the intention is important and the action is not so important, if I feel that my heart is directed to unite with the ten toward the Creator, then is everything I do correct?

Answer: Yes. The only question is whether you read your heart correctly and whether your heart advises you correctly.

Question: How can I check my heart?

Answer: It is a matter of practice. You need to continue discovering your differences with the others in the ten, and gradually you will understand what they are right about and what you are right about.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/18/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati 16 “What Is the Day of the Lord and the Night of the Lord, in the Work?“

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The main thing is prayer because it expresses our request and attitude to the Creator. Prayer shows that we already understand that we are completely dependent on Him, that there is absolutely nothing we can do on our own, and that everything depends only on how we will be able to ask. Therefore, our main strength is the power of prayer.

But we, on the contrary, usually cry precisely because we do not have the strength. It turns out that just when we have no strength left, we are ready for real work, which is prayer. Meaning that I should be glad when I feel powerless; I have come to the point where I can turn to the Creator, shout, ask, and pray.

It takes a lot of effort to realize that one cannot achieve anything on his own. Then I turn to the Creator, and ask Him for strength and help to raise prayer. Then, the Creator fulfills this request and allows us to cling to Him.

The Creator feels a person’s desire to adhere to Him, just as the Creator is already stuck to a person, although the person does not feel it yet.

Prayer should be from the bottom of the heart, and each time it is deeper and deeper. To turn with prayer means to cling to the Creator with my hands and feet as if I am in the Creator like a fetus in the mother’s womb. I drink and feed from Him, and I want to drown and infinitely dissolve in Him. That is, how I want to annul myself in front of the upper.

The appeal to the Creator is possible only through friends. That is, I want to grab hold of my friends and annul myself before them; this will mean that I have incorporated in the upper.
[319602]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/18/23, “Everything is Obtained By the Power of Prayer”

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And the most important is the prayer. That is, one must pray to the Creator to help him go above reason, meaning that the work should be with gladness, as though he has already been rewarded with the reason of Kedusha, and what joy he would feel then. Likewise, he should ask the Creator to give him this power, so he can go above the reason of the body.

In other words, although the body does not agree to this work in order to bestow, he asks the Creator to be able to work with gladness, as is suitable for one who serves a great King. He does not ask the Creator to show the greatness of the Creator, and then he will work gladly. Rather, he wants the Creator to give him joy in the work of above reason, that it will be as important to a person as if he already has reason (Rabash, Article 12 (1991), “These Candles Are Sacred”).

A person does not yet have knowledge; he does not even want to be in knowledge, but desires to be above it. In other words, even if he sees contradictory, opposite qualities within reason that should not be in the Creator, he still wants to elevate himself to worship the Creator, to place Him above himself.

Comment: When I succeed in rising above reason and experience joy, it also becomes knowledge that I have overcome; I have connected and I am happy about it. But still, at some point you come to feel it within yourself.

My Response: Of course you have joy because you have achieved it although the Creator did everything, but He did it with your nature. ​​He created your initial nature and at the same time made it possible for you to attain the next, higher nature.

But it becomes knowledge again, and you rise above it again.

Question: How can you be happy not just for yourself?

Answer: Then you will immediately fall.

Question: And where should one go beyond that afterward?

Answer: All the time higher, and there you will see.
[319397]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/19/23, “Everything is Obtained By the Power of Prayer”

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From this one can come to clear awareness that he has no other choice but to pour out his heart to the Creator to help him so the body will agree to enslave itself to the Creator unconditionally, as he sees that he cannot persuade his body to annul itself completely. (Baal HaSulam, Shamati No. 5, “Lishma Is an Awakening from Above, and Why Do We Need an Awakening from Below?”)

Question: The body (egoism) will agree to work without reward only because it views the Creator as great. This will serve as payment for the fact that he works for the Creator.

Is there still a calculation going on here, to serve for the sake of someone great?

Answer: Of course. It is impossible to do so without any calculation because our desire to receive puts us on a different track; instead of working for myself, I do it for the Creator.

Question: Then at what point are we making an effort and what kind of effort is it?

Answer: Our efforts are directed against egoism, which constantly distracts us to its own needs. Try to work everything out so your requests would be the least egoistic.
[319334]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/17/23, Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati 5 “Lishma Is an Awakening from Above, and Why Do We Need an Awakening from Below?“

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Rabash, “What Is, ‘A Ladder Is Set on the Earth, and Its Top Reaches Heaven,’ in the Work?”

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Vol. 1, Part 1, “Inner Observation,” Chapter 1, Item 9

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3rd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “A Handmaid Who Is Heir to Her Mistress”

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Selected Highlights

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Question: In Rabash’s article “What Is, “Rise Up, O Lord, and Let Your Enemies Be Scattered,” in the Work” it says that Torah gives a person medicine. What medicine does the Torah give in our group work?

Answer: You get a small illumination, a little upper light, and you begin to better understand where you are. And so you advance.

Question: How do we turn Torah into the light of life rather than a poisonous potion?

Answer: It depends only on our intention. If we want our turning to the Creator to elicit a corresponding reaction from Him, we must unite and ask Him for only one thing—to draw us closer to Him.
[319531]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/21/23, Writing of Rabash “What Is, “Rise Up, O Lord, and Let Your Enemies Be Scattered,” in the Work?“

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Question: It is written in Baal HaSulam’s article “The Eighteen Prayer” that there is a commandment to pray for suffering. How can we do this correctly?

Answer: By suffering we mean a lack of connection with the Creator, with friends, with all of humanity. Praying for suffering correctly means that I am not asking the Creator to take it back, I am not asking not to cause it in me.

Through suffering He reminds me that I am not corrected. Therefore, I ask Him to correct me, and then, to the extent that I am corrected, I will begin to feel the world differently.

Question: What does a Kabbalist suffer from?

Answer: The Kabbalist suffers from the fact that he wants to love more, but is not yet able to. The point is that there is a limit to the extent his heart is in the intention of bestowal. I want more, but I do not have the strength yet.

Question: What do we pray for when the Creator already cancels suffering?

Answer: We pray that we correct ourselves and treat each other with love, and then the suffering itself will disappear.
[319486]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/19/23, “The Eighteen Prayer”

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Comment: You said that it does not matter what material you are given. For example, someone wrote something for you, and it is through the intention that you put power into this text.

My Response: Indeed, I do not care what kind of material. Who cares?

Let’s say we are in a forest. You tell me about a stump, another person tells me about a bird, a third about a flower, a fourth found a mushroom somewhere, and so on. You are trying to tell me or to pull a picture of the forest out of me. So, what difference does it make to me where you start?

After all, I want to tell you about that path in the forest that leads us to the hut on chicken legs. Therefore, no matter what you tell me, I will still transform this information in a way that it is useful for you, and you will be able to correctly navigate the forest.

Question: What I mean is that you put intention into the text. What is “intention” in this case?

Answer: It is very simple! You have a small desire—to find your way in the upper world in which you are practically not present, but your point exists there, i.e., your small desire is there.

If it is not present, then you will sit and listen to me like a cat who supposedly listens to a symphony orchestra playing. And if you have a point in the heart, the rudiment of your next external organ of sensation, then through my sensation of the upper world I include you in myself like a little baby. And you begin to receive some fulfillment, some vibrations that come to you through me.

Actually, you do not even receive them because you cannot have them since there is nothing to receive them in, but they begin to work around you, wash you like waves wash a stone on the shore, roll you around. You begin to gradually change. It seems to you that you are getting fulfilled, that you are changing, that you are beginning to imagine something. This is how you get new sensations.
[318545]
From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How to Set an Intention?” 11/29/11

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