Two questions I received on the role of knowledge in spiritual advancement

Question: In order to advance, do I have to know what state I’m in and what spiritual level I’m on? And in general, how important is it for my spiritual development to have knowledge about the spiritual worlds?

My Answer: Knowledge doesn’t matter at all. However, it does help you connect to the topic (the correction of your soul). Nevertheless, the most important thing is to attract the Light of correction, and this happens during the study of authentic Kabbalistic texts. Item 155 of the Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot explains that the Light descends to the degree one desires to understand what is being said in the text, even though one doesn’t understand anything. This means that a person is trying to understand what the book says about him and his state. It’s because a Kabbalistic text includes all the states of all the souls, and every soul is able to find “its own frequency,” the frequency at which the common soul, the Creator, is speaking to it.

Question: You said that a person who advances in Kabbalah does not have to turn to books when it comes to realizing his freedom of choice, and that this is something he has to do inside. My question is: How do you keep an inner account with yourself if you don’t have the forces for it inside you? You said that a person should turn to the society when he wants to realize his freedom of choice.

My Answer: Baal HaSulam speaks about this in one of his letters. He writes that if you desire to figure something out inside you, then just be alone with yourself, without books. This way you will feel yourself and the result of what has happened to you by studying Kabbalah. You will be able to find yourself, your path, something that’s yours, instead of what others have said.

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Two questions I received on how to connect spirituality and regular life

Question: How does the spiritual world influence and enliven our world, if the two worlds aren’t connected? Do they have a “cause-and-effect” connection? If so, then why isn’t our world also perfect and eternal?

My Answer: Our world is governed entirely from above. And every day we are becoming more and more convinced of this, because no matter how we try to change things, nothing goes according to plan.

The only way we can influence the Upper World (from below upwards) is to evoke (ask for) an acceleration (but not a change) of the process of our correction (by studying in the group and disseminating). We will perceive this acceleration as if evil and suffering are replaced by goodness and pleasure.

Question: Why does a person have to separate the spiritual part of his life from the regular one?

My Answer: It’s necessary to separate the two worlds. However they aren’t separate in and of themselves, but only relative the person who attains them. Outside a person, there is only the general Light. Once a person attains the Upper World, through it he sees our world, and he is no longer confused about the origin of everything that happens and about the connections between all parts of the world. But if he starts attaining the Upper World from our world, then he will get confused and start seeing forces through objects. He will do the same thing that the religions and faiths do – start thinking that there is spirituality inside the objects of our world, worshiping material objects such as trees, lucky charms, red strings, holy water, or predicting the future. This is why Baal HaSulam writes that one first attains the Upper World, and only after such attainment, one starts researching (from the Upper World) the descending forces that form our world, and the phenomena in our world.

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A question I received: I have a question about our group development. It looks like everyone inside the group as well as outside has lost his mind. Many have dropped studying, left the group, are afraid of getting attached to the group, and are scared of Kabbalah. There are many doubts if it is an authentic path to the Creator and it becomes more difficult to remain concentrated. I would like to know what it means and how a person can overcome these doubts.

My Answer: Groups without a strong spiritual leader cannot exist because group members are people who are not corrected and have a big ego. Their hearts are filled with egoistic desires though they have “the points in the heart,” which are just the points yet. And so hidden (for them) competition kicks in – a game who’s the first, who’s the chief, etc. It’s said in this case, “Separation of sinners from each other is good for them and for the world.” I spoke a lot about it on the last American congress. I think that people should gather together only for mutual dissemination actions; meaning, the actions geared towards outside (of the gathered). All other connections lead to disagreements. You are too “young” to ascend spiritually together. But if you contact each other only relative to work in dissemination then you can be of help to yourself and to others. Kabbalah is for the ones who are ready give themselves up, give up their egoism for the sake of mastering the quality of bestowal. But this is a gradual process and you have to take into account your nature. Otherwise you’d be as in the saying that thousands come but only singles (a few) left. If there is a group of people aspiring to one goal there must be a guide, a shepherd, a leader, a king. That’s how the world is created. Therefore, if there is no undisputable authority in the group there could be no group and our practice proves it.

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A comment I received: I’m shocked and moved to tears to find out that we are also potential Nazis. Why did great Kabbalists, who attained Gmar Tikkun (final correction), continue to take part in cruel slaughter and use of animals? How can it be possible that the exalted teaching of Kabbalah ignores cruelty to animals?

It’s obvious that it won’t correct anything in the soul if we were all to become vegetarian. But great Kabbalists corrected everything and did not become lovers of miserable animals. How can this be? Maybe there are 126 levels and the time of the complete Gmar Tikkun has arrived only now, when “love thy neighbor as yourself” will also include animals, plants and the still level of nature? As far as I understand with my simple mind, we must ultimately feel love for ants and bugs as well…

My Response: There are rules for how to act in order to correspond to the general law of nature, called Elokim. Man has been created opposite to this law, and our task is to change ourselves in order to be the same as this law. This is the purpose of our existence in this world. This change in a person, from our level to the Creator’s level, can be attained only by studying Kabbalah. Baal HaSulam writes about it in the article “Introduction to the Book ‘From the Mouth of a Sage’”: “Even if a person is completely righteous in this world, knows the whole Torah and has fulfilled all the earthly commandments, but did not study Kabbalah, then he must return to this world again in order to study Kabbalah” – because only by studying Kabbalah does he attract the Light of Correction to him, as written in the “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” item 155.

By correcting himself, a person unwillingly acts according to the Upper Laws. When this happens, how does he relate to the nature around him? He relates to it based on the degree of his equivalence of the Creator. And no matter what he relates to, he does so based on his equivalence to the Creator. But perhaps his actions and behavior won’t seem righteous to you, because you imagine righteousness differently to what it is in the spiritual world.

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News Story (translated from Cursorinfo.co.il): Israel is a unique nation trying to survive a deadly battle. It’s a nation that worships life at a time when it’s surrounded by enemies that worship death. And it has to solve a two-sided dilemma: How to use the advantages of the “society of life” in the battle with the “society of death”?

A mandatory condition in this battle is a tacit social contract according to which every Israeli pledges to risk his life whenever necessary, under the condition that the other citizens will do the same. The spirit of this tacit contract is that we all agree to place our lives in danger for the sake of our mutual survival.

For Israel, breaching this social agreement is much more dangerous than HAMAS and Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. Breaching this unwritten document leads to a situation where less and less young citizens want to become soldiers who protect the country and risk their lives doing so. As a result, the country’s leaders also have less and less moral right to send people into the heat of battle. Less and less Israelis feel protected, and it’s not because the enemy has gotten stronger, but because the social contract is disappearing from our life.

My Comment: And its only solution is in the mutual guarantee of helping one another survive. Then, in such a connection, we will discover a special fulfillment – the perception of the Upper Governing Force. We will understand that everything was created for the sole purpose of revealing this force to us. When we connect to it, we will feel that we exist eternally and perfectly. However, we can go through this path by means of the Light instead of suffering. See Baal HaSulam’s articles “The Arvut” (“Mutual Guarantee”), “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah” and “The Freedom.”

Following Israel, the whole world will feel that it is in the same situation – that its existence is endangered. And whether by the path of suffering or by the path of revealing Kabbalah, it will have to come to the Light.

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A question I received: You are constantly making stabs at the Kabbalah Centre and for the life of me I can’t understand why. They have the lineage. Rav Berg learned through Ashlag and the lineage. Is it because you were connected, but not given the Kabbalah Centre? You then started your own center. I read your books, including The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Kabbalah. It is a book without religion or spirituality, it is just science. I enjoyed it, but the Kabbalah Centre offers spirituality, holiday observance and they have lineage with Brandwein, Ashlag and the Ari. It just hurts me to see someone who is into Kabbalah, like yourself, putting down other people for the red string and their own beliefs. Isn’t that anti-Kabbalah?

My Answer: Personally, I consider Berg a failed Kabbalist. He just didn’t have a true teacher. Berg did not study Kabbalah with any true Kabbalist; you can ask Ashlag or Brandwein about it. No true Kabbalist could have taught him to sell Kabbalah for money. And I never wanted his center. I had a teacher – the last great Kabbalist, the eldest son of Baal HaSulam and his spiritual successor – Rav Baruch Ashlag. I was never connected to the Kabbalah Center. I was there once to give an introductory lecture and immediately understood that there is nothing to learn there. After I was studying with Rav Baruch Ashlag for a year, I offered teaching a class to Berg’s lecturers in the Kabbalah Center, in order to teach them at least something. As a result, they left his center and came to my teacher, and they became Kabbalists. That acquaintance and my visit to his center took place in 1980, but I opened my center only in 1995. Please tell me: what Kabbalistic sources are used for study in those “Kabbalah” centers? What works of the great Kabbalists do they study there? But after all, it’s only by studying them that a person receives the recognition of evil and its correction (Ohr Makif). And about me envying Berg: There was a time when I was giving lectures in LA and he offered me a teaching job in his center. I said I would do it, but on the condition that we study from the original sources. He laughed when I said this to him, and he told me “Who will pay you the kind of money for this that I’m now getting?” And he was right…

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Two questions I received on freedom of choice

Question: What do you do when you understand that there is none else beside Him in reality, and that even I don’t exist? I felt this today and I got scared. It’s a game, and I am not a part of it. I got a feeling that there is only one way out of this – to become a human being, to develop the point in the heart that’s in me, otherwise “I” won’t exist. It’s scary living with the knowledge that you don’t exist at all, in any regard. But the answer comes immediately: It lies only in the aspiration toward attainment and adhesion. But what do you do with the fear?

My Answer: Being present at the lessons daily (for at least a part of them, virtually), disseminating together with everyone, and most importantly, feeling the world group – these are the only things that will enable you to come out of all the negative feelings! It’s because spirituality can only be attained in the unity of souls with one another, and to the degree of their unity. The only correct way to eliminate all the negative incidents is through unity and dissemination.

Question: Yesterday, I went outside and I didn’t feel like I was outside. I had the feeling that the only thing that changed was the scenery. I used to see people just as people before, but now I see additional meaning when I look at them – I see that there is no independence at all, and that everyone are puppets…

My Answer: In addition to this, you should also remember that you are the same as well… Your feeling is right in that everything is a theater, and everyone is an actor acting out our roles. You should find out what your role and purpose is, reveal the entire picture of the universe and consciously play your role in it, in order to become like the Creator. By playing His role, you start understanding Him and the Great Director’s Design.

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A question I received: Sometimes you can’t hear the lesson! That is, you’re listening to it, but you don’t hear it! Sometimes you sleep through it… And sometimes it seems that you understand every word, and it’s simply a revelation!

What determines one’s sensations at the lesson? Is it the lesson itself, the people who are present at the lesson, the person, the material being studied, or something else?

What can I do to hear the lesson like I did the first time, when I couldn’t hold back the tears?

My Answer: I understand you. This happens to everyone. It’s because the Creator only gives a person the initial desire for the spiritual goal: He awakens one’s point in the heart. And He brings a person to the source (a book, a teacher, a group, the Internet), and no more than this. And it’s up to a person to continue developing this desire he received from above, to develop it to the size of the World of Infinity.

This is impossible to do unless you study Kabbalah in the correct environment. (See item 155 of Baal HaSulam’s “Introduction to Talmud Eser Sefirot,” and also his article “The Freedom.”) Otherwise you will spend many years eating yourself up.

In addition, it’s very important to prepare for the lesson. The preparation begins before going to sleep. You should fall asleep with a Kabbalistic book in your hand. Wake up half an hour before the lesson and attune yourself to the lesson. If you don’t attune yourself, the lesson will be ineffective.

You should go through this period more energetically: from the point to the Machsom. Good luck!

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Two questions I received on the subject of faith above reason

Question: A person who studies Kabbalah works in faith above reason before the Machsom (barrier). How does this notion change for this person after he acquires the screen? And does he even need it once he starts perceiving the Creator?

My Answer: It’s only after the Machsom that a person is able to work in faith above reason. Before the Machsom he only aspires toward it, but he can’t act in such a way yet. It’s because faith is the property of bestowal that one acquires above the Machsom, above egoism (knowledge, reception). “Faith above reason” = “bestowal above reception.”

Question: When a person attains a certain spiritual level and he desires to rise even higher, to even greater equivalence of form with the property of bestowal, and when he is on the path of faith above reason, does he use the previous level in his actions, or does he refuse to use it as well?

My Answer: He already considers the previous level as completed and egoistic compared to the next level. And this happens every time. The Upper Level is called “the Creator,” and it changes every time. Today, a person attains the Creator of yesterday, and acquires a new Creator, whom he will attain tomorrow.
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Three questions I received on the notions of nationality and Israel

Question: If a person is physically born a Jew, does it mean that he will always reincarnate as a Jew?

My Answer: Yes, because his soul came from Babylon and took the path of correction, then ascended to the level of complete personal correction during the times of the Temple, and then fell from that level to the state of all the souls in this world, in order to spend 2,000 years together with them (and even worse off than them), while being in exile from spiritual life. Precisely this soul must ascend and help everyone else do the same – help all the souls attain the full correction.

Question: If the answer is yes, then is it because the nation of Israel was chosen to carry the plan of the Creator, and this would mean that all the other people will also continue being born with the same nationalities that they started with?

My Answer: Yes. However, we don’t know about the other ten tribes, where they are and who they are today. It’s possible that today they are several billion people – those who were on the spiritual level and fell from it during the times of the First Temple. We learn about this fall and its correction from the breaking of two Partzufim, DACHGAT and NHY, in the World of Nekudim, their common fall and then their common correction. See parts 6 and 7 of Talmud Eser Sefirot.

Question: What if a person converts to Judaism and works very hard trying to attain the Creator? Does he also become a part of the nation of Israel (physically and spiritually)?

My Answer: There is no such nation. These people are ancient Babylonians who began correcting themselves back then. The others, who continued developing egoistically, went on to develop from the 70 forces of Zeir Anpin of the World of Atzilut, and this is why they are called “nations” – and each one has its own form of egoism.

The former are called “Hebrews,” which comes from the word Ever, meaning “across” (across the Machsom), “Jids” – because they await the correction or the Mashiach, and Yehudi (Jew), which comes from the word Yehud, meaning union (with the Creator). This is what set them apart from their brothers, the other Babylonians. So one doesn’t just “convert to Judaism,” the way we see it in our world, but rather spiritual Judaism is when one corrects oneself to the level of the Creator, one attains the Creator through studying Kabbalah. Just like in ancient times, those who are the “nation of Israel” today are those who separated from the other Babylonians by starting to correct their egoism.

You should see the world as that same Babylonian civilization, a part of which temporarily corrected itself, and today everyone must become corrected and become like the Creator. There is no such thing as corporeal Judaism, just like there are no religions, faiths, and so on. All of these things are incorrectly, egoistically understood Kabbalah. Where did people even get such notions, even if they’re mistaken? They came up with them either because their soul hinted at them from within, or from the fall of Kabbalah to the egoistic level. Who were the ancient nations? They were pagans or believers like Romans and Greeks. Everything else came from the spiritual fall, in order to accelerate the development of the Babylonians and bring them to the necessity to become equal to the Creator.

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