Question: How do I soften my heart?

My Answer: You can do it by working in the group, through the examples we show one another, and by the Light that we want to draw during the study. There are no other means. Don’t look for means of spiritual advancement where there aren’t any: in psychology, other methods, or sciences. The entire work is done in the group.

There are the friends, and there is the study. The more we realize the advice of the Kabbalists, the more “assets” we will accumulate. There is nowhere to run from the place of the breaking, the place of our interconnection. By locating it, we will reveal the full depth of the spiritual system’s breaking that exists only between us. It is also here, between us, that we must discover unity, the spirit of life, joy, and aspiration toward the goal.

There are no other places to look. The key lies in our mutual aid. I must learn from the examples of others and show them examples in return. We must read about it together. By distracting ourselves in searching for recipes other than what the Kabbalists have left for us, we will only increase our confusion. There are no other means than the books, the teacher, and the friends.

Together, we have to look for the opportunity to reveal our connection or lack thereof, to reveal the need, the mutual guarantee, the energy, mutual support, and the Creator among us. If we focus all our work and fixate ourselves only on this place, we will achieve the result very quickly. Either we surrender and retreat, or we finally make it through this narrow pass and reach the goal.
[21952]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/26/10, “They Helped Everyone His Friend”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Correction Happens Only Through The Light One Receives During The Study Of Kabbalah
Laitman.com Post: What Is Mutual Guarantee In A Virtual Group?
Laitman.com Post: A Mutual Guarantee

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Q&A - 1 Comment →

Baal HaSulam explains in the article “Arvut” that no one can attain the goal without help from one’s friends because otherwise a person won’t have the fuel, the “spirit of life.” A person on the spiritual path must arm himself with a great desire after revealing the breaking between us because the force of hatred between us lays bare the evil inclination. Even The Zohar talks about how the friends in Rabbi Shimon’s group revealed hatred, and only after that did they reach love, level by level, by means of the Light they evoked through mutual study.

The goal is also something we discover inside our interconnection. By gradually restoring the connection between us with the help of the Light, we reveal 125 levels until reaching unity with the Creator. Thus, we attain the Creator Himself, the force of the Light that Reforms. If, however, we don’t base everything on the revelation of the place of the breakage and its correction, then our actions will bear no connection to spirituality.

Indeed, we have just one contact with the spiritual world, and that is the place of the breakage of the connection between us. It is written, “I created the evil inclination.” This is what we have to find and reveal. That is why our entire work is devoted to discerning the quality of connection between the friends on the path to revealing the Creator: myself, the friends, and the Creator (or Israel, the Torah, and the Creator).

We are looking for a connection between us in which the Creator is concealed. This is the key that opens the door to Him. By correcting our attitude to our interconnection, we find the quality of bestowal and love, and that is how we reveal the Creator. This is the only way a friend can help a friend. This constitutes our only free action. All other acts are compulsory, puppet-like. We shouldn’t demand anything from each other besides the desire to help.
[21964]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/26/10, “They Helped Everyone His Friend”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Human Reality
Laitman.com Post: Prepare A Place For The Light To Work
Laitman.com Post: How Can You Help A Friend?

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

Mutual guarantee is a special space between us, our common desire. All spiritual revelations take place there. And if there is no such space, there is no common desire, but only our individual egoistic desires. We construct this common space to the degree that I annul myself and enter this collective desire, you annul and put yourself there as well, and so does everybody else. Otherwise, it does not exist!

The vessel into which we can receive the Light is not ready-made; we have to build it, we have to aspire to oneness. By cultivating our unity, from 0 to 125 degrees, we perceive, at each degree, a new picture, a greater revelation of the Creator. All “sacred” books (the Torah, The Zohar, etc.) tell us exactly about this: the degrees of the connection we create by turning our evil and rejection of each other into love and unity. Thus, the entire Torah is comprised of stories that describe how we unfold and correct the evil.

We feel our world in the “place of unification” as its absence; we feel our separation and not the Creator, the One. Yet, even this world resides in that very “place” between us with one difference: Here, we reveal the degree of our broken oneness and absence of the Creator.

Meanwhile, unity acts similar to a resistor which connects plus and minus. Inside it, my ego, my rejection of all others, is concealed. But above it, I make an effort to unite. By doing so, I create resistance between rejection and exertion. And the greater the difference, the resistance between them (“faith above reason”), the greater Light is revealed.

The same law applies to electronics and the spiritual world. Ultimately, all Nature consists of “plus” and “minus” or the forces of bestowal and reception. The only way to connect them together is through a resistor, which could be any receiver. This receiver is Adam that we are constructing: our soul.

Therefore, on one hand, we have the breaking force, and on the other, the force of our effort in creating unity. But it doesn’t annul the breaking; we unite exactly above it! As a result, we create a space where the Light that expands from the two lines, plus and minus, is able to work and start affecting us. Through this work, we build ourselves: “human reality.”
[21583]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/20/10, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: A Common Space Between Us
Laitman.com Post: The House For The Creator
Laitman.com Post: Unification Of The Souls = Equivalence To The Creator

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work - 1 Comment →

It is written, "We will do and we will hear," which means that we have the opportunity to work on the connection between us as much as we can in the material world, acting "as if" we want to unite. That is why we are in this illusory, false world. It was given to help us, not to punish us!

We are in a group that moves toward the Creator, and we are lying to ourselves, "playing" the game of spirituality the way children play as if they were adults. We pretend to be drawn to one another and to love each other, while everything we do is a pretense. However, even these external efforts attract the Light that Reforms upon us and bring us closer to the Creator.

As a result, we attain the state of "mutual guarantee," where every person guarantees that his friend will have the necessary inspiration and the forces to awaken upon him the Light of Correction (the reception of the Torah – see Baal HaSulam’s article, “Matan Torah”).This does not mean that I am happy because I have been freed of my worries and am in a society that takes care of me. Rather, the mutual guarantee gives us protection from our evil inclination because it allows us to replace care for ourselves with care for society. To the degree I start to worry about others, I stop worrying about myself.

In the meantime, we are under the rule of the "Egyptians," which is how Kabbalah calls our global egoism. To the degree we attain the mutual guarantee, we will be able to come out of "Egyptian" rule and "come out of Egypt." Then we will stop worrying about ourselves and will replace concern for ourselves with concern for society.

When we come out of our small, inner, egoistic world to the outside, we will start to feel a new reality. Desire determines everything since it is the matter of creation. If we aim ourselves at the common desire through the mutual guarantee, then when we go from our personal desire to the common desire, we will reveal a new place, a new universe. That’s how we go from one world to another.
[21476]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/17/10, Selected Excerpts on Yom Kippur

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Spiritual Reference Point
Laitman.com Post: Desire It And "Hear" It!
Laitman.com Post: The Condition of Entering the Upper World Is Mutual Guarantee

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Holidays - No Comments →

We do not change anything on our spiritual path; states pass like they should, and all evil must be revealed. We have to feel all 613 (Taryag) of our desires in the form of mistakes (Shgagot) and unfavorable transgressions (Zdonot). It is written, “One cannot perform a commandment without breaking it first,” and “There is no righteous man who does good without having sinned.”

We have go through the feeling of Hell in all of its manifestations. The question is how do we enter these sensations, with what preparation? If we prepare ourselves with a mutual guarantee, the right intentions, and the support of friends (Kli) and the Light which we reveal in our connection, then we can pass the most difficult descents quickly and easily, coming into contact with them for only a moment.

Such a brief “encounter with the devil” is enough for a person to take the breaking from there and raise it to correction. However, we have to correct all the breakings in all 613 desires.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/16/10, “What is the Matter of Sufferings in the Work”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The First Stage Of The Spiritual Path
Laitman.com Post: Don’t Be Afraid Of Mistakes
Laitman.com Post: The Gate Of Prayer

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

The key is to reveal the first point of the soul: the property of mutual guarantee. This is similar to the state of  a body awakening from unconsciousness. That is the state the broken soul exists in. Such awakening of the soul may occur only when it is impacted by the Upper Light (Ohr Makif, the Surrounding Light) and is filled with the Upper Light (Ohr Pnimi, the Inner Light).

There are questions concerning our world: What is the secret of life of the material body, and where does life come from? We could collect and connect all the necessary body tissues in a laboratory, but how do we light the spark of life in it so it may live? The source of life is not in our hands; we only manipulate the body while it is alive.

But where in the bodily tissues does life reside, the force that makes the body alive? We cannot create vegetative matter from still matter, nor can we make animals from plants, and humans from animals. That is because the life force expands from its concealed plane.

This life force can be revealed in mutual guarantee as the inner force of our oneness, if we desire to annul alienation between us and attract the force of the Creator. This life force is regarded as “the Creator.” When it becomes revealed to us, we start to understand to what extent all our previous existence has been just an outermost wrapper on this force.

From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/12/10, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: How Can We Scream So We’ll Be Heard?
Laitman.com Post: We All Guarantee For Each Other
Laitman.com Post: Unification With The Group Leads Us To The Creator

Filed under: Group Work, Inner Work, Perception - No Comments →

What we are creating between us is interconnection, interdependence, mutual guarantee, love, and a definite necessity to be together. This is the connection (or the "place") we have to create so that inside it we will reveal the Creator who hides from us. He will speak to us from this place we create, "the tent of revelation."

Without having this communication system between us and the Creator, we are just crying out into empty space. We can only turn to the image that we form through our connection: the Creator’s Temple.

It is written that love for the Creator can only be attained through love for others. That is why we are building a spiritual system of mutual guarantee and mutual support among us. Its purpose is to reveal the Creator.

Therefore, our primary necessity is to work on building the group. The first condition for receiving the Torah, the Light of Correction at the foot of Mount Sinai (the state of revealing mutual hatred) was the impossibility yet the willingness to bond together as one man with one heart, and to work on this unity by the principle, "we shall do and we shall hear."

No matter how small our willingness to do this, if we have it, then we have a common point, a "window" through which we can turn to the Creator. This common point is already Malchut of the World of Atzilut, the Shechina.

That is how we should understand the preparation for the reception of the Torah.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/14/10, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The House For The Creator
Laitman.com Post: Preparation For Receiving The Torah: The Light Of Correction
Laitman.com Post: Where To Search For The Creator
Moments From The Daily Lesson: Communication

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Unity - 1 Comment →

The Simulator is spirituality because it means we are building something between us with a desire to produce our common spiritual state. This state exists outside of us, like an external point of connection between us that I can always make contact with. I can be constantly connected to it and I can constantly contribute everything I am capable of to it. I will then receive the spiritual force – life from it.

Therefore, the simulator is a spiritual quality like Bina. That is exactly how we should relate to it. That is why we have to turn this virtual space into our inner, spiritual space. We have to “throw” all our aspirations, hopes, and concerns into it. What is a group is and where is mutual guarantee? It’s there! Throw everything in there, inside this “mail box.” If we all put our efforts and aspirations for spirituality into this single space and receive spiritual life only from it, then this is exactly what we need.

This space is virtual in the external sense, but in the internal sense it is the place where all our desires, aspirations, and intentions are concentrated. That’s why this space is spiritual and the Creator becomes revealed inside it. We build the Creator ourselves; He is not outside of us. All of this is extremely serious. The time has come for us to start doing serious practical work.

The whole question is: Does a person consider this “simulator” the most important thing in his life, just like spirituality? Does he desire to receive inspiration from it instead of another place? If yes, then the inspiration he feels is spiritual because he is impressed by the connection among us which is embodied there in that simulator. At the end of the day, we must see it as the focus of our common concern and the source of life for everyone.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: How Does Our Spiritual “Tamagotchi” Work?
Laitman.com Post: The Place Where The Hearts Meet
Laitman.com Post: The “Spiritual Stimulator” Is A Step Toward The Future Society

Filed under: Spirituality, Unity - No Comments →

We reside in the only existing reality, the World of Infinity, but we are “unconscious” within it and don’t realize where we are. In order to bring ourselves to perceive this singular reality instead of remaining unaware of it, we must exert effort like a maturing child does or a person who is coming back to consciousness.

What are the conditions required in order to feel this reality? They are: stepping out of self into oneness, mutual guarantee, and love. In spite of our egoism that doesn’t allow us to meet these conditions individually, we must fulfill them all together. As a result, we will find ourselves in the corrected system, the World of Infinity.

Understandably, we hate working against egoism, but we must make an effort to complete this job as if we are children playing a game. “Playing” means I imitate the Upper One as if I already possess His quality. Making efforts to obtain it is called playing. It brings the hidden forces to light and that is how I progress. I aspire to a higher degree and my effort draws the Light which reforms me so that I become equivalent to the degree of its source.

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Only Way To Ascend
Laitman.com Post: Draw The Upper World For Yourself
Laitman.com Post: Play In Order To Develop

From the Weekly Torah Portion 8/13/10, “Shoftim“

Filed under: Torah, Zohar - No Comments →

Question: Why is it that after every Convention where we experience a great ascent and inspiration, we always experience a descent?

Answer: This is a spiritual process. During the Convention we receive a big “Kli” (spiritual vessel) and connect to a new, bigger desire. However, if we don’t add anything to this new desire afterward, we feel empty.

Over the course of the Convention I connect to the desires of thousands of people and feel that we are all one man with one heart. I feel our mutual guarantee as if I lost myself and dissolved in them. I pass myself over into their hands! Even if this feeling is just there for a few moments and unconsciously, it still happens. Thus, for the first time I already connect with others and reveal a spiritual desire, a Kli, which I did not have previously.

Previously I only had material desires that I wished to fulfill egoistically. This is called the animate level of desire. However, now without even knowing how it occurred, I joined something very big. This connection is a lack of spirituality or bestowal. It is a spiritual desire that was not present in me before.

Now I need to work on it. Yet, instead I leave it, wishing to return to my former regular desire, and await ordinary egoistic fulfillments again. But what about that new spiritual desire? In comparison to material desires, that huge spiritual desire remains empty!

That is why I lose the taste for life and do not understand how I can fulfill myself. The usual “meat and wine” do not bring me pleasure like before. Therefore, in light of the forthcoming Convention this November where we will reveal an even greater, stronger spiritual desire, we need to prepare the right response to it now, ahead of time.

Related Materials:
Laitman.com Post: Redemption Will Come At The Hands Of The Creator
Laitman.com Post: Sailing On The Waves Of Congresses
Laitman.com Post: The Preparation For The Next Congress Starts Now

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/16/10, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

Filed under: Conventions, Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →