A person who wants to reveal the concealed part of the world has to understand that there is nothing standing in his way. The revelation depends solely on his desire.

We exist inside the general, integral system of Nature, and we receive from it at every moment depending our desires’ similarity to Nature, which is unchanging. Nature is always in a state of perfection, whereas each of us has desires or Reshimot that are constantly changing. We experience ourselves and our existence inside these desires to the degree they are similar to Nature.

This is why we feel miserable: because our desires are opposite to Nature. If you aim your desire at becoming more like Nature, then you will immediately feel an improvement of your state.

So, there’s no sense waiting for any changes to come from outside. The positive changes can only take place when you change to become more similar to Nature – to this perfect, unchanging system.

This process is similar to a baby’s relationship with its mother. The mother has everything, and as soon as the baby desires something that’s good for it, it will immediately receive it. But if the baby desires something that’s bad for it, then it won’t receive it and will feel bad, since its desire will remain empty.

Thus, we feel bad inside our current desires because the Creator – the perfect system – does not fulfill them, due to the fact that they are opposite to Him. It is written, “Make your desire the same as His desire” – and then it will immediately be filled.
(From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

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A question I received: When can a person begin to consciously realize that his desires are corrected?

My Answer: When a person is on a certain level, he has no sensation of it.  The current level on which someone exists cannot be studied until they rise to a higher level.

Prior to crossing the Machsom, all states are known as concealment and are considered only one level. When we are at this level, we see that we cannot orient ourselves, do or understand anything, and without question, we cannot evaluate or measure where we are.

Even after having crossed into the sensation of the next level, we cannot immediately orient ourselves, since we are entering the states of an “embryo” (ibur), followed by the states of “breastfeeding” (enika), and the “transition to adulthood” (mochin).

Only in retrospect can we evaluate, examine and understand relative to our previous states, but not to our current one. One can never evaluate their current state. When we desire to evaluate our current state, we must always perform this task according to “from the higher to study the lower.”

We must rise to a higher level, which we, the creation, perceive as the Creator, and from there, study ourselves as to the what, the where and the how.

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All the diversity in creation is created by the interaction of two forces – giving and receiving. Their interaction results in the formation of images which we clearly perceive, because these two forces unite inside a person. We don’t perceive the force of reception or the force of bestowal separately. We always feel their interaction, which depicts various images of the world inside us.

These images depend on the thickness of one’s desire (0, 1, 2, 3 and 4), which is the vessel in which the force of bestowal illustrates these qualities for a person. Depending on this, one feels the inanimate, vegetative, and animate objects in nature, or the human being (the soul) and the Upper World.
(From Part 3 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

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How shifting your focus from a goal of fulfillment to a goal of longing increases the quality of your desire:

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Every person includes the entire universe – a vast, endless egoistic desire. In addition to this, each person has one other point, called the point in the heart. This point contains the entire, endless, future spiritual desire. It’s just that it is presently concealed from the person, and manifests only as a point of desire. This is the point that one must develop within.

At the same time, the egoistic desire will keep on growing in order to force the person to develop this point. You can argue, “But the desire is so great, while the point is so tiny!” However, that isn’t so. The desire within this point will always be commensurate with the general corporeal desire. These two desires within a person are always in balance.
(From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

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A question I received: I have heard that a special Upper Light comes down to our world during the holiday period. What does it give us and what inner changes does it make to us?

My Answer: If we unite with one another during the holidays, when we will be influenced by an additional spiritual glow, which we will be able to use to advance. This can happen today more than ever, because there are many thousands of people studying Kabbalah with us.

So let’s unite and discern that our desires are egoistic and broken. This sensation is called Slihot – the Days of Repentance, where we check ourselves and see how opposite we are to what we desire, the quality of bestowal.

Let us then try to reveal how opposite we are to spirituality. This sensation is called the Day of Awe or Judgment Day. This revelation gives rise to a prayer and the blowing into the ram’s horn (Shofar).

In Aramaic, Shufra means importance. So, blowing into the Shofar means that we exalt spirituality, bestowal and love, making them more important than corporeality and hatred. We want spirituality to become the most important and highest thing to us, and for it to rule over us. We demand for the force of the Light, which is now present in the world, to operate within us, and to help us attain “the Ten Days of Repentance.” This means that the Light will influence us and enable us to feel that we are totally opposite to the quality of bestowal, inside the ten Sefirot of the soul. And thus we will come to Judgment Day (Yom Kippur).

On Yom Kippur, we feel that we are opposite to spirituality, and we see that the quality of bestowal – Bina, and the quality of reception – Malchut, are opposite. They are separated by an infinite abyss. That is when we take on the restriction of Judgment Day and refuse to use our egoistic desires, which are opposite to spirituality.

As a result, I begin to demand correction. I don’t demand to feel better, but to ascend to a different level of desires – the desires of bestowal. And then an even higher Light comes to me – the Light of Sukkoth, which gives me a covering (Schah) over my egoism.

When I correct seven of my Kelim during the seven days of Sukkoth, then my desires receive fulfillment, and I reach the eighth day, called “Atzeret.” At that point, I block the Light and the Light becomes revealed. This is called “Simchat Torah” (the Joy of Torah).
(From Part 1 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, on Rabash’s article, “Kingdoms, memories, and blowing into the horn.”)

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The first stage on the spiritual path is recognition of evil and its purpose, which is to lead me to the understanding of my entire nature. The program which draws the picture of reality for me by giving me the sensation of this world and my part in it, is called ego, or the desire to receive pleasure only for myself.

It locks me inside, engulfs me and draws all of my attention, making me think only of myself. I act according to that program, unable to even imagine that there is another option, another reality. What can possibly be done to change this perception and behavior?

Our nature itself leads us to recognition of its evil, leaving us no chance to escape it. It has power over us, locks us inside and constantly coerces.

This is the worst kind of slavery, when a person reveals that he is a prisoner of his own nature and can only obey its orders. He knows in advance that he has no choice but to obey, even though each order he follows, will further harm him.

Kabbalists have a parable, where the angel of death comes to a person and extends a sword with a drop of poison on its tip. A man obediently opens his mouth, knowing that by taking it he will die, yet he licks it. He has no other choice.

It is a great inner drama. All of man’s work is in realization of his exile and bondage. When a man is completely in despair, the point in the heart awakens inside him and begins to shine for him, showing him that there’s another world and a blessed shore on which to land.

He can’t continue to sit inside a shell forever! He has the ability to hatch  and climb out as a worm that comes out of bitter radish and suddenly sees the sun and breathes the clean air.

A person can then hear that there is a method that allows escape from the servitude and terrible life where the pointless cycle repeats itself: birth is succeeded by death. He discovers that there’s a means to break that vicious cycle and rise.

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The true reality can only be seen through the quality of bestowal, which contradicts our egoistic knowledge. Our egoistic qualities depict an incorrect picture of the world to us, giving us false goals and facts opposite to the truth. People are yet to reveal how mistaken all the earthly sciences are. They will all end up “hanging in thin air,” having lost their foundation.

Right now people think that science is an indisputable truth that they can rely on. But this is only so as long as they exist inside the world’s egoistic quality.

However, as soon as one begins ascending above this world, one discovers that all the previous laws no longer apply. That’s because everything the human mind has discovered to this day are the laws of the egoistic desire. If one changes one’s desire to a desire for bestowal, then the laws will also change, as will science. One will suddenly see that the laws are no longer working: to his surprise, vinegar will start to burn the same way as alcohol. (This is an allusion to what is written in the Talmud: “He who told the oil to burn will tell the vinegar to burn.)

Of course, these changes won’t be critical, because our world will exist until the End of Correction. It’s just that in addition to this world, we will reveal new, spiritual desires, and inside them we will see new phenomena.

How did people create science? They did it inside their desire, inside themselves. People noticed that one egoistic desire is accompanied by one phenomenon, and another desire – by another. And it’s the same on every level of our world, be it still, vegetative, animate or human.

All of science is founded on such observations. For example, in mechanics I take an egoistic desire on the still level and measure which actions correspond to specific desires. In essence, this is still the Light and Kli interacting with one another.

We perform the same type of research on the still, vegetative and animate levels of nature. This is how all science arises – because man is the one researching it all!

So, as long as we exist inside one, egoistic nature, which is the still (lowest) level of desire, we will keep researching everything inside it. But if we add higher layers to it, those belonging to the desire to bestow, then our perception of the laws of nature will change.

We will reveal new phenomena in nature, and it will appear as if nature has changed. But in fact, the only thing that ever changes is our desire, and when it does, we feel other facts inside it.
(From Part 1 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson)

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Our mind always develops alongside a desire to achieve something. When your desire grows, it produces a mind to procure what you desire. In spirituality, the mind is an acquisition: One has to create it through the force of his unsatisfied desire.

If I really want to achieve the next state, then I carry out various actions which draw the Upper Light. Even a toddler who is trying to put blocks together is affected by the Surrounding Light, which is elicited by his desire. In virtue of this Light, the toddler becomes smarter.

It’s the same with us: the Light, clothed into an aspiration to reach what we desire, brings us greater intelligence. And suddenly, we understand what we have to do.

But at other times, this happens the other way around: we suddenly succeed in doing something, and then we learn from this. These are two types of awakening: from Above and from below.
(From Part 3 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, on Baal HaSulam’s article, “The Acting Mind”)

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The point in the heart is a very special Reshimo that we receive, and it is a true miracle. With its help, you can separate yourself from the desire to receive pleasure, come out of it, tear yourself away from it, and then study, analyze and control it from the outside.

You can then study it externally and see exactly what the Creator had created. The ability to see this is called “faith above reason.” To study this is to study the Mind which operates the matter of creation.

In order to do this, you have to be outside the desire, above it and in unison with the Upper Mind that influences it.
(From Part 3 of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, on the Article “The Acting Mind”)

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