The Creator will never unite us “just because”; unity won’t happen until we ask for it. We must realize that we lack and desire only unity. The desire for unity stands opposite to all the other desires that arise, desires whose purpose is to obscure our yearning for unity. Rising above all the obstacles that only increase our desire to unite, the desire for unity will grow so intense that we will start crying. That is our goal,opposite to all the other desires as it is written, “And the sons of Israel cried out by reason of the bondage.” Only with this cry will the Creator unite us. If you sit and wait for this to take its own course, it will never happen. No spiritual action will occur until there’s a definite and complete desire for it.

Such a desire must burn within the group. Make sure to awaken the others and demand that they awaken you. Be willing to pay any price for them to be awake and to keep waking you up.

Only our collective outcry can save us. There are many people who are eager to cry alone, but the Creator doesn’t hear it as this is a voice crying in the wilderness. However, if we cry out together as one and if we possess only one common desire, effort, and goal, He will hear us at once because we will be similar to Him in our desire.

Otherwise, there is no way to draw the Light that Reforms. You don’t have the desire to receive this Light. It has to correct your egoism and the separation into bestowal and interconnection. However, you don’t yet feel the need for such correction.

We have to examine ourselves to make sure that all our actions are aimed solely at attaining the common prayer: that everyone’s desire should match the common goal so that all will be united in one common outcry. This is a prayer that will receive an Answer.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/30/10, Article, “You Are Now Standing All of You Today”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Unity Is A New Reality
Laitman.com Post: Whom Do We Pray For?
5 Minutes of Light: “Prayer, The Desire I Wish To Correct”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention - No Comments →

A question I received: How can we strive for bestowal if we don’t perceive spirituality and don’t have a clear vision of the goal, spiritual objects, and forms? How can I aim myself at them and take a step in their direction without doing it wrong?

My Answer: That would be correct if speaking of externality, but spirituality is called the inner world. It requires internal evolution because it occurs solely based on our inner changes.

When I choose the environment by which to be influenced, I thereby determine what my next desires and inner transformations will be. My constant examination of progress is based on what advances me. Is it based on whether or not I have received egoistical fulfillment or satisfaction from something I did, a feeling of pride for my actions, receiving someone’s praise, gaining greater understanding, or attaining better perception? Or, am I progressing in spite of the emptiness in all of my egoistic desires? Am I willing to keep going without fulfillment, but by being fueled by another force?

What is this other force? I don’t know. I demand to be granted it. It is the force of bestowal and love. This force can’t be gained from the group; the group can only instill in me the importance of receiving it. The force itself has to come from the Creator.

I suddenly start sensing a whole laboratory within me and I don’t require any external images. I begin to see that the gradation of qualities and the examination thereof occur within me. What happens outside of me has no importance. I see the spiritual goal – to keep working fueled solely by love and bestowal – within myself as well. I wish my desires to be filled with the Reflected Light, not by the direct fulfillment. I want the sensation of bestowal, not the sensation of fulfillment by the Light.

Thus, I shun my doubts such as where is the external goal and how do I reach it. I now sense that it is within me. I examine and evaluate it by analyzing what fills my spiritual vessel and the source of its life energy and what it expects: satiated fulfillment or the fuel for bestowal. Then, I don’t feel that I am lacking some vision and external signs on the spiritual path, it is all within me.

When a person gradually transfers his attention from the external parameters to the internal ones, this transformation is the measuring device as to how close he came to the Machsom, the barrier that separates the corporeal world from the spiritual worlds or degrees.

That is when a person starts, with the help of the Creator, to control himself from the outside, through the group, in such way that he can work not for the sake of advancing according to his own egoistical criteria, but above reason. A person begins to operate on some foreign type of energy that he didn’t possess before. His body, the vehicle, starts moving on its own like an “eternal engine.” It is an indication that he has begun to receive the energy of bestowal that serves as his fuel.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/28/10, Article, “Sometimes You Call Spirituality By the Name Soul (Neshama)”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Who Benefits From My Actions?
Laitman.com Post: Gaining Access To The Main Source Of Energy
Laitman.com Post: Plant Your Spiritual Seed In A Blessed Field

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work - No Comments →

A question I received: In books, there is always a main character of the story. When I read a Kabbalistic book and try to imagine all the internal forces are there also a central force as well as less important secondary forces?

My Answer: When you read a Kabbalistic book, what counts is not your understanding, but rather your effort. Spiritual revelation is a contradictory process. On the one hand, revelation is an intimate, individual process that occurs within me, and on the other, the forces that are needed to attain the revelation come from other souls through my connection with them. It looks like a contradiction in terms. I would rather my desire for spirituality stay one on one with the Creator and the Light that Reforms. Yet, if I wish to reveal spirituality, I can do so only in the Light of bestowal which comes to me through the group.

So it follows that I use my point in the heart (a desire for spirituality) to read the Kabbalistic book, and while reading to want to put together the picture within myself as it is described in the book. But what material serves me as a basis for the changes I undergo? For this practical work, I am given the environment, the group. Only by being interconnected with each other whereby I relate to them correctly and they do the same in return, can we raise our request, MAN.

In return, I receive the Light that Reforms; that is, I am granted a correct attitude that enables me to see what is written in the book. That is when I begin to transform myself and see my authentic connection with others. At this point, establishing union with others is no longer a problem. They become my world through which I implement what I read about; by connecting with others, I feel the property of bestowal, our interconnectedness that the book was depicting.

For now I only sense an irresolvable conflict. I agree to have a relationship between myself and the Creator, myself and the book, myself and the Light, myself and myself, myself and the world, myself and the group, but I always insist that everything starts with me! Here, however, I need to connect with the others in order to serve them, to act only for their benefit. This is something totally unclear to me.

How can I possibly switch the attention from myself to the others without feeling the difference between us? How can I open and give away my heart to them? At first, I refer to a Kabbalistic book using my egoism, but later on, I begin to understand that I need the force of bestowal. That is when I appeal to the group so as to receive a sensation of bestowal from it. And when I realize that I do not have and cannot have this property, I understand that I need the Light that Reforms which helps me transform myself in accordance with the book.

Having a common desire which we receive from the group, we all raise MAN. In return, I receive the Light of correction and begin to relate to a Kabbalistic book differently. I can build myself in accordance with the book’s instructions, like putting together a Lego set.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: What Hides Behind Each Word Of The Zohar?
Laitman.com Post: The Book About You
Unlocking The Zohar: “Power Of A Group”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Zohar - No Comments →

We should not forget about the influence of the Upper Light upon us. It is the most important component, yet we constantly forget about it. When the Light works on us, it gives us a certain sensation of the other side, the nature of bestowal, and that tiny spark within us begins to grow.

We are entirely immersed within our egoism, yet this miniscule spark of bestowal, the point in the heart, is granted to us. If we study Kabbalah books and work with the friends by trying to connect them to ourselves, we thereby draw the Surrounding Light that brings us back to the Source.

The point in the heart expands and grows bigger, and in this additional volume we begin to sense what bestowal is, that it is opposite to reception, our egoistic qualities. In this way we study one in contrast with the other, allowing us to check these qualities, like plus against minus.

It is similar to how in physics or chemistry, evaluations are made by comparing opposites for otherwise it is impossible to discern anything. There must be light against darkness, and only then do we begin understanding something.

This is why we sit down and study. And even if we don’t understand anything, gradually, by being with the group and close to authentic Kabbalistic sources, we draw the Surrounding Light.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/25/10, Shamati #99

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Day Begins In The Evening
Laitman.com Post: The Letters Are Born Out Of Light And Darkness
Laitman.com Post: Awakening The Forces Of Good

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work - No Comments →

There are two forces in nature: reception and bestowal. These two forces depict pictures on our desire to enjoy like on a computer screen. They project the picture of the world that consists of me and everything around me. As Baal HaSulam writes, in the posterior part of our brain there is a screen through which we perceive a picture of the world.

This picture is created with the help of two forces: a receiving (left) force and a bestowing (right) force. The combination of these two forces on my egoistic material depicts the whole picture of reality for me. I feel it, I see a picture, as it were, and it seems to me that this picture, this reality, exists outside of me. I, myself, project my inner picture in front of me. This is how I “see the world.” It’s as though I retrieve it from within myself and project it outside.

Why am I built this way? Why do I see my inner world in an external form? It is in order for us to treat it egoistically with neglect and hostility. Thereby, we receive an opportunity to study our inner world and to correct ourselves.

If I sensed it as being inside of me, I would never be able to correct myself because I would relate to everything in a positive manner with goodness, but solely in an egoistic manner. But now, since my ego comes out to the outside and I feel that it is foreign, I relate to my “external self” like to a foreigner, egoistically in a negative way, rather than positively and like it is my inner part. Therefore, I have an opportunity to understand what “external” and “internal” mean for me.

The world was split into two parts: me and the others. I cannot convince myself that something which exists outside of me is my own. I am given an opportunity to see my inner essence in the outside picture: “Come and see who you are and how you treat those around you. This is how you are inside.” You say, “Look how ugly this one is, how lazy that one is, how dumb another one is! I hate them so much!” Meanwhile, all these qualities are yours and not those of others.

These revelations help me. Otherwise I would never be able to relate to them, to completely reveal the “evil inclination” (egoistic desire, hate for everyone) and later to understand that these are my inner qualities that are projected on the outside.

Then I begin to understand how the Creator helps me by giving me such a perception of reality: to see my insides on the outside. I begin to understand how much this helps me, and that without this, I would be completely locked within myself and I would never be able to understand what the “I” is. Meanwhile, there is something here, “something in me that I do not consider to be me.”

Therefore, our entire work boils down to the unification of our inner self with our outer self, with the outside world, and particularly with the group. We can practice with the group. After all, when I begin to work with the group and try to treat the friends like myself, I see that I am incapable of uniting no matter how much I try to convince myself that all this outside of me is also me. I can’t even treat a small part of humanity, the group, whose goal is close to my own, like myself. I can’t relate to it above my egoistic mind.

In this regard, I begin to see this egoism like something that was artificially created by the Creator, particularly for its annulment. However, I am unable to do this on my own; I can only desire it and then ask the Creator for the disappearance of it (egoism). Why should I ask? In order to receive a connection with the Creator!

“How can this be?” Understand that they are you! Treat them with love, since they are parts of your soul!

“But I can’t!” They are your friends, your neighbors. They are advancing to the same goal as you! What separates you after all?

“The force of the breaking separates us. The Creator placed it as an obstacle, and I cannot overcome it.” And then you ask to correct this in particular. You ask for correction and incorporate the whole world into yourself.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Unique Range Of Each Soul
Baal HaSulam Article: “The Love For the Creator & Love For The Created Beings”
ARIfilms: “Kabbalah and Our Perception of Reality” – 2 of 2

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Perception, Zohar - No Comments →

A question I received: Who is our “Upper One” in spirituality?

My Answer: We don’t know that. We exist in the womb of the Upper One as a mere point, a droplet of semen, our spiritual Reshimo (record, gene). Beyond this Reshimo, we have nothing else!

In fact, our corporeal body, mind, and feelings have no relation to the spiritual world and cannot be seen there. In the spiritual world, there is only a womb of the Upper One (Malchut of Infinity) and us inside it. And each of us is a Reshimo (0/1, Shoresh Aviut/Aleph Hitlabshut) or in other words, a point in the heart.

Our task, as a point in the heart, is to try to cling to the wall of the spiritual womb! Beginning with the three days during which the semen is absorbed, the first problem for the embryo (us) is to attach itself to the wall of the womb. Attaching to the womb is establishing the very first contact with the Upper One.

In order to do this, we must annul ourselves before the Upper One. But where is this Upper One, this wall of the womb? What is it exactly? The Upper One is the Kabbalistic group, my environment! This is how the Upper One reveals the Creator for me.

Thus, there are the group and me, who adheres to it, despite all the obstacles. I accept the entire force of the group’s desire for bestowal, and I am willing and ready to take it all in through annulling myself before them.

When I attach myself to the group, my Aviut, which is the strength of my will to bestow, begins to grow and cause unpleasant sensations in me: disappointment, growth of egoism, and burdening of the heart. But I must go even deeper in, like a leech, clinging to the group which is the “wall of the womb.”

Then, between us, the first connection will appear, not through a point, but through the tube through which “blood” will start flowing into me. This connection, so far, is on the inanimate level (“Dam”- blood, from “Domem” – inanimate), but I will have already received spiritual sustenance from the Upper One.

All of this takes place through my connection with the group. There is no other “wall” through which I can enter the spiritual world!

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/10, Article “Preface to the Sulam Commentary”

Related Material:
Kabbalah Moments: “Spiritual Simulator”
Kabbalah Moments: “Annul Oneself Before The Group”
5 Minutes Of Light: “Growing The Desire For Spirituality”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work - No Comments →

A Kabbalistic group is the AHP of the Upper One, Malchut that incorporates many other souls in it. I’m the lower one, and my task is to connect my point in the heart to those other souls even though they are foreign to me. If I annul my point in the heart relative to the Upper One, it turns into my GE (Galgalta ve-Eynaim) and, thanks to the Upper One, acquires a form. The Upper One gives it everything that it needs for growth, providing it with the structure, meaning with all the souls, the entire World of Infinity, the whole vessel of the common soul.

If you want to become a spiritual object (Partzuf), adhere to the Upper One, and its AHP will become your newly revealed world. To the measure that you cling to the AHP of the Upper One, your point in the heart expands, thanks to the AHP’s parts.

To adhere means to accept its rule over me, as Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Freedom.” The AHP of the Upper One is my environment. By clinging to it, I receive from it everything I need much like an embryo receives blood, oxygen, and nutrients from its mother. I do so in order for my point in the heart to grow into a spiritual organism.

This organism will resemble whatever I received from the AHP of the Upper One, the group. Yet, it will be its manifestation in my point in the heart, my spiritual gene. In other words, it will be shared by them both, the group and my own point in the heart. This is similar to how a child looks a little like his mother and his father, yet receives his essence from the Creator.

I pass myself into the “hands” of the Upper One; I introduce my desire into it, my demand to become the part in which the right and the left lines unite and realize the act of bestowal. To the extent that I accomplish it, that is, to the extent to which the semen annuls itself before the mother and obliges her to develop it, the mother starts taking care of it in return.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/14/10, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Learn To See The Light In Bestowal
Laitman.com Post: Upbringing In The Spiritual World
Kabbalah Moments: "Transforming Myself"

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work - No Comments →

A question I received: How do I combine the following dual attitude: On one hand, I have to view every one of the friends as greater than me, as the greatest of the generation. But on the other, I need to see them as smaller than me, as though in need of my constant care?

My Answer: I can easily relate this way as I do to my child: He is more important than I am since his desires determine my actions. If he needs anything, I drop everything and do as he asks. Yet, when I tend to him, I relate to him as someone who is smaller than me and cannot do without me. It follows that we can have this dual attitude simultaneously.

It is understood that the common desire is more important than my own. It is the miniature model of the common soul and already contains everything like a holograph.

If I relate to this small group with the law of mutual guarantee (let’s say the group is ten members large), those ten members are the same as ten billion. There is no difference here. Indeed, I need to exit my egoism, so it doesn’t matter whether I do it relative to ten or ten billion people. If in them, I reveal the spiritual world, then who is more important: me or them?

By myself I cannot reveal anything besides this earthly, corporeal life. Whereas in the right connection with the others, I reveal spirituality. Naturally, with respect to the goal, the group becomes more important to me than myself.

I must accept their desire as my own most sacred wish, as a law! This is what allows us to unite. On the other hand, I need to perceive them as smaller than me so as to feel that they need my help and give to them all that I have.

Whenever we’re talking about love and unity, I can regard another both as a small individual and as a great one. There is no contradiction here. It’s much like a baby with respect to an adult, where the baby becomes more important than everybody else. A small child is like the head of the family since the whole family revolves around him.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/10, Article, “Purpose of Society”

Related  Material:
Laitman.com Post: Being Impressed And Dependent At The Same Time
Laitman.com post: One Can Not Walk Alone
Baal HaSulam Article: "The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)"

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work - No Comments →

A question I received: What kind of game is it?  Is it to perceive the friends as the greatest?

My Answer: It is not a game; it is breaking through the concealment. My egoism conceals me from the others and the others from me: It doesn’t allow me to see the entire World of Infinity. Right now I am in the World of Infinity, but what I see is quite a gloomy picture. My egoism paints a picture of ugly, stupid, lazy, lying people. But in reality, it is all wrong; this picture resides in me within my egoism. If my own children, whom I love dearly, were next to me right now, how would I view them? They would look perfect to me because “love redeems all sins.” I would still love them with all their flaws.

Only my ego is to blame; I see nothing beyond it. In the back of my brain, I have a screen. I seem to view the world through my eyes, but it enters through the prism of my egoism and is projected on the screen in my brain. Everything depends on my attitude, and how I attune myself to see it. So, I have to attune myself to the group in such a way that I see them all as the greatest people of this generation, completely corrected.

Is it a game? No, it is simply annulling the deception of the ego. It is a rational act. Beyond me, there is the World of Infinity, and I already reside in it, right now. If you peel off all the shells (Klipot), which distort the World of Infinity to this mediocre, inverted state, you will perceive Infinity.

First, try to pretend. Let’s make an effort. Try to see us as fully corrected, big, and united. Through this action, we will draw a very strong Surrounding Light, and it will correct our nature. Instead of egoism, we will attain bestowal. This is a very simple principle, and it is absolutely real; there is no mysticism here. We are trying, through our own effort, to see ourselves in the corrected state, and in that degree, we will receive an inner strength, which is contained in this corrected system. Our desire pushes it to act. These are the practical actions toward correction.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/10, “The Importance of the Association

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Infinity Is Boundless Unification
Kabbalah Moments: “Through The Ego”
Song: “The Greatest in the World”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Perception - 2 Comments →

A question I received: We have to rise MAN (Mayin Nukvin, a prayer). Is this action performed within the desire?

My Answer: MAN means that I’m asking for the force of bestowal. From within Malchut, I turn to Bina and ask Bina for the ability to bestow. However, I have to reach the state whereby becoming filled with this prayer (MAN) is enough for me; I feel joy from being able to rise MAN.

How does the Torah describe this state? It is when you come into the “daylight.” A “day” is when you have nothing and have been wandering in the desert, looking for MAN (the desire to bestow), and you find it. When you do, it enlivens you, satisfying all of your tastes. It contains everything that you desire.

What kind of “taste” is it? Where is it coming from? What is MAN? It comes to you from Bina. It is when a mere possibility to make a plea to the Creator is enough for you: “I have the connection with Him. I can ask Him. Nothing else is important to me.”

Yet, don’t I want to have the desire within which I can reveal the Creator? No. I’m satisfied by merely having an aspiration to Him. This constitutes my fulfillment now. The connection with the Creator through the group fulfills me.

"But what kind of connection is it? How can you have anything? You have nothing." True, but can I appeal to Him by rising MAN? When this is possible, that’s enough. This is called “wandering in the desert,” acquiring the properties of “Hafetz Hesed” (he who doesn’t want anything). In the desert you are deprived of everything, you truly desire nothing for yourself. Yet thereby, you acquire the correction by the property of bestowal, similarity to the Creator, and this is your fulfillment.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/6/10, The Zohar

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Learn To See The Light In Bestowal
Laitman.com Post: From A Lie To The Light
Shamati #81: "Concerning Raising MAN" – Lessons
5 Minutes of Light: "What is Practical Kabbalah?"

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Prayer and Intention, Zohar - No Comments →