Freedom of will lies only in strengthening our environment so that it influences every one. This is in our hands. There is absolutely nothing else that we are able to change in this life.

You entered the Convention hall and felt a powerful tension. This is because a common desire that was there influenced you. Everyone burned with an enormous desire to reach the might that would enable us to make a leap up, and this affected you.

So, why are you not able to organize your environment so it would influence you the same way now? There are many thousands of people participating in the daily lesson with us, so why are we not able to influence one another?

We have the same connection, and we are in the same common field. Does it matter that much that we are not sitting in the same hall, in the same physical space? Is this the only problem? Why do we lack that common joy and enormous happiness?

We simply lack preparation. Several months before the Convention, we all waited for this day with hope, fear, trepidation, and worry. We read and listened about it, memorized special songs. We all prepared ourselves for this event.

It took an enormous amount of money, time, and physical effort. Of course, when all of this gathered in one place and exploded at the same time, it led to an impressive result. Everyone who was there as well as those who followed this event behind a screen received this strong impression. Why are we not able to continue the same way?

We achieved this degree, this elevation of the spirit, with our common work from below (Itaruta de Letata, awakening from below), and now it is ours. We bought it; we paid for it. So, why are we not able to hold on to our possession?

We need to remember that we have kept this attainment after the Convention because “one is elevated, not lowered in spirituality.” Everything I have attained is now mine, but now I am being swamped with a new, uncorrected desire that obstructs anything that happened previously because it reveals a new height to which I need to rise. I need to regard this new mountain as a means to ascend.

So, let us understand what happened to us. We did not fall; we acquired an opportunity to ascend. Then, we will see a precise goal before us, and we will simply need to combine our strength. After all, this is the only action that can enable us to ascend, only through joining together.

We unite even more strongly in the group, and this will mean that we are ascending. The Light lifts me; I myself do not need to do anything. I just need to connect with others more strongly than ever. Then, the Light will lift me to a new height, a new degree.
[27447]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/10, “Body and Soul”

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My Good Environment – Questions of the Day

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My Good Environment – Questions of the Day

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My Good Environment – Questions of the Day

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Man develops like an apple that ripens on a tree until it attains the final, desired state. Man certainly goes through very opposite states on this path. He feels like a hard, sour, unripe apple. Yet can he nevertheless follow the path of Light instead of the path of suffering and feel that he is constantly coming closer to the good?

When following the path of suffering, our desire to receive pleasure constantly receives blows as it grows without receiving fulfillment. However, when we follow the path of Light, it takes us through the same states consciously, and instead of living in our desires, we live in intentions, which enable us to reveal the opposite world, the world of bestowal.

In it, I receive pleasure from bestowing to the Creator. The egoistic Kli (vessel) is the desire, and the altruistic Kli is the Reflected Light, the intention to bestow, Ohr Hochma (Light of Wisdom).

I not only accelerate my development with the help of the Light, but also perceive this path as pleasure because I am going toward a desired goal. I agree with His plan, and every moment brings me closer to it.

However, the closer I get to the goal, the stronger I feel that I am opposite to it. This is because we constantly keep increasing our sensitivity toward the difference between us and the Creator, as it is written: “The Creator is critical of the righteous to the thickness of one hair.”

On the first degree, I feel that our difference is not that major: Big deal, I receive, and He bestows. Then, from the first degree I rise to the second one, and even though I become more like Him, precisely because of this, I feel that the difference between us is no longer minus 10, but minus 100. I have risen (in other words, I acquired a correction), and it operated as a magnifying glass where I see my flaws 100 times stronger than before.

Even though I became one degree closer to the Creator, I also became 100 times more sensitive. Before, a difference the size of cart ropes did not bother me; now, I am bothered by even one little hair.

The only element that can be changed in the four factors of development (the foundation, the ways of development of the foundation, the environment, and the ways of development of the environment) that influence a growing apple or a person, his spiritual gene, is the influence of the environment. This is because only the environment determines whether the apple has good conditions for growth: enough sun and moisture.

The same pertains to the soul. When we receive good conditions for growth, we will not need wars and suffering. If we want our apple (soul) to grow, it needs to be in balance with the environment.

In order to do this, it is necessary to establish a connection with this environment and attain the Upper Force through it, attain the Creator who turns into the environment and corrects it so that I, the environment, and the Creator would unite into one whole.
[26843]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/17/10, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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A person can check how included he is in the group and whether it is able to provide a new intention for him. Obviously, bestowal is opposite to his nature and he is initially unwilling to do this, yet he must artificially build himself and his environment so it really “brainwashes” him.”

The group has to “bend” a person, pushing him off the “straight” path to his beloved self, onto the path of bestowal and unity which appears to him like a crooked path. Therein lies the first criterion for making the check: Which values will the group give me? For now we are talking about the values of unity. This is the task that the group must place before me, raising its importance in my eyes.

But at the same time, we must understand that there are other goals which the group cannot yet arm itself with and realize in full force. In the meantime, by means of the environment, my intention changes: I think about my own benefit more and more, but I already connect it to the group and find personal benefit in the unity with friends.

Then it becomes clear that we do not simply connect to one another, but reveal the Upper One, something spiritual. Now we expect that this will be to our benefit: We will ascend higher and higher up the spiritual degrees. This is already a group intention of Lo Lishma.

But after that, we start to slightly think about a true altruistic intention, Lishma, because in reality all our efforts must benefit the Creator. With time we start to have thoughts even of this nature.

Of course, we do not want this, yet to some degree we agree to talk about this. Then every person starts to slightly connect to the true goal and to be permeated by it.

That is how we go from one state to another, from one “place” to another, from one degree to another, as we improve our desire and its intention which we received from the friends. Gradually we correct our desire, and more than that, our intention. Our intention is the vector we receive from the environment, the direction we take above the desire.

Therefore, we have to ensure that the purpose, the goal we obtain from the environment, will constantly change, becoming higher and more important, and becoming truer in our eyes. As a result of all the “intermediate” intentions, we will consolidate together in the group in order to give pleasure to the Creator.
[26795]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/10, The Zohar

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Question: Does the perception of reality depend on the environment?

Answer: If I wish to see a different, more advanced reality, compared to the corporeal reality of this world, I can see it only on the screen that I build from our mutual connection. Wishing to build a different reality, I must connect with the friends’ points in the hearts and create a network between us as it was before the breaking of the collective soul. This network of communication between us is the screen on which I see the picture of the world.
[25253]
From Kabbalah for Beginners, “Perception of Reality,” 10/20/10

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Question: How do I keep the intention while being pressed by all kinds of obstacles?

Answer: To keep the intention is possible solely with the help of the environment and a strict schedule: I have to know that there is a lesson to attend, and I have to come; I have chores and duties in the group, and I have to honor them. It’s forbidden to digress from the routine schedule in anything.

Use all your free time to do more work than before. During a descent, the only thing that can help is your connection with the group where you do any work, like a diligent laborer, without the senses and intelligence of which you are incapable at the moment.

The correct realization of a descent is when you are not trying to escape from it, but use it to ascend. If you think that you can handle it with your own desire and mind, it is totally incorrect. During the descent, a person doesn’t perform any clarifications nor does he have any feelings. He is dead, as it were.

What is a descent? It is a reception of an additional, more exalted desire to feel pleasure. You are made to feel that your GE (Galgalta ve Eynaim) are being adjoined with the AHP (Awzen, Hotem, Peh) of the Upper One, and instead of your desire, you feel His.

Previously, I had my own 10 Sefirot, and the Upper One had His. However, now I attach His desire to mine, my GE and His AHP, and there are 10 Sefirot once again. Instead of my small AHP, I have the addition of the AHP of the Upper One, the enormous desires that are willing to restrict and nullify themselves. This AHP is allowed to work with me, which places an enormous burden on me.

Suppose I can lift 20 lbs, but am forced to lift 50 lbs. I can’t do it! They tied a 50 pound weight to each of my legs. Can I really take a step? Or, I was going to give somebody $10,000 and suddenly discovered that I, myself, have a debt for this very amount in my bank account. How can I now give the money to another? There are plenty of such examples in our lives.

This is regarded as the revelation of the AHP of the Upper One. What can I do if I experience it as complete darkness? Is there any way I can handle it using my intelligence and emotion? What intelligence and senses? From my point of view, is there really any logic in all this?

I was a “good child” at my rung, and out of the blue, I am loaded with the desires and duties that I cannot handle. Am I supposed to carry them all out in my present state, when I have lost my mind and senses and am completely lost and trapped in endless problems? How can one do anything alone?

Salvation lies solely in the group, and doing any available mechanical work in it by yourself. This will be the starting point of your ascension to a new state.
[24950]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/10, “600.000 Souls”

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