Light Is When It Is Light Within

Question: How can I reach the Light of faith?

Answer: Our desire determines everything, but the Light does not change. All the changes take place only within a person: where he aims his desire at, and relative to this, what strength he needs. He receives according to this.

We are always under the influence of some light, but it is very weak. We do not match this light, but feel its lack, and that is why we do not notice it.

Light is a force, but it affects us either to the extent of our similarity to it or the opposite. That is why the light of the Passover holiday is a huge light, but it is not manifested openly.

We think that light is when it is light outside. But there is nothing outside—the entire world is inside us. And that is why light means the light of mind, the light of feeling, opening in our heart and thoughts.

A vast world that seems to surround us is revealed, in fact, in our sensations and mind. And Light is the force of revelation in the feeling or thought.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/12, Shamati 59

Signs Of A Period Of Transition

Question: You have said that a person is like a cancer cell in the body of nature. How long ago did this occur?

Answer: Our egoism develops gradually and we’ve undergone a few stages of its development. Starting from the 5th century BC until the 5th century AC, humanity developed in its aspiration toward wealth. From the 5th to the 15th century humanity developed in its aspiration toward power. From the 15th to the end of the 20th century development was in the aspiration toward knowledge. These are the prevailing tendencies.

In the beginning of the 20th century an academic named Vernadsky defined our development as ending and leading to a noosphere or balance with nature. Later this idea was embraced by many other scientists. This research was continued by the well-known Club of Rome and later other branches appeared.

Essentially, egoism ended its development in the 1960s during the birth of a new culture among the youth: detachment from life, the “Beatles generation,” hippies or flower children and so on. This was the beginning of an inner skepticism, which meant that the new generation didn’t wish to nor did it find it necessary to constantly strive forward due to the fact that it feels empty.

We are constantly developing under the influence of our desires. After all, a person is a desire. We don’t know what to do when our desires for wealth, fame, or knowledge run out and we suddenly feel that we no longer receive the needed fulfillment form them.

This is when general depression appears. This is what we now see in our society: growing rate of suicides, families falling apart, a detached attitude of children and so on. This is a transition period, which should be relatively quick. We are in the midst of a serious developmental acceleration.
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From a Lecture at Šiauliai University, Lithuania, 3/22/12

The Privilege To Be Happy To Bestow

From a lesson of Rabash: We study that we should be in equivalence of form. What is equivalence of form? Just like the Creator bestows, so do we have to bestow. This is equivalence of form. When we have to bestow, we have no self-love, we cry. It hurts that we must do so. The Creator bestows, and the question is does He have pleasure in it or isn’t there pleasure for the one who bestows? So there is no equivalence of form! So there must be pleasure when we bestow, otherwise there is no equivalence of form. You can bestow without pain; bestow, I don’t need your pain, just bestow.

Enjoy the bestowal, who gives it to you? He should work, the body doesn’t want to! It isn’t that I need to suffer, there is no choice; the body doesn’t want to work. Why should I suffer; I don’t want to suffer. I need the exertion! And this isn’t a condition! A person who doesn’t feel the exertion, it is a sign that his intention is in order to receive, not in order to bestow. The body doesn’t agree to bestow.

You should never yearn for bad things. If it’s necessary to feel different changes, they will come by themselves. A person shouldn’t think about a descent, but always yearn for an ascent, both in his feelings and his thoughts: for goodness, adhesion, connection, and wholeness. But at the same time, a person should assess himself critically, understanding that if there is nothing inside him that objects to bestowal, it’s a sign that there is an egoistic matter here. If a person manages to advance happily and without exertion, it’s a clear sign that he does it egoistically, in order to receive. Only when he receives above the power of bestowal, will he be able to bestow and at the same time be happy.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/1/12

Keeping The Direction Towards The Creator

It is written, “there is none else besides Him [besides the only force of nature].” This means that there is no other force in the world… that is opposite or similar to it, that exists besides it. That is, there is only one force in the world, Nature, which includes everything in it.

Actually, it doesn’t include anything in it; it only seems to us that it is divided into many parts. It seems to us that there are many forces, reasons, results, and different occurrences in the world, but it all stems from this one force.

We are among many people, with such big problems, worries, and constantly changing actions on purpose, so that despite everything, despite all these actions, problems, and interruptions we will focus our attention only on the force that created everything around us.

Everything that seems like interruptions, that negates the uniqueness of this force, Nature, and that stems from one plan, one thought, one goal, all of it is meant to repel us from it so that we will return to the same track, like a missile that has to constantly follow the same course. It constantly checks itself when it is off track, and only so can it aim itself again towards the goal, like an ordinary surveillance system.

I have to direct myself at the goal, but I am on the path, not knowing how to advance, as if hanging in the air, and there are no road signs around. So how can I do anything? This is the state we are in: We don’t see the goal. It is totally hidden from us by the screen that conceals it.

Since there is a screen, we don’t know what goes on behind it. So how can we reach this goal?

To do that, we have “road signs” and certain diversions, and we constantly check ourselves and thus advance forward. By diverting from the goal, I calculate the error and return to a normal state. And this happens all the time.

But what state is considered normal? How do I know it? After all, I have never seen this great goal, so how can I aspire to it? I aspire to it when I aim all my thoughts, longings, actions, the reasons, the results, and everything that happens in the world to one source only. I have to attribute all the minuses and the pluses, everything that happens to me to one thing only—to this source.

This means that there are individual forces of a single force of Nature, which purposefully acts with the intention to divert a person from the goal.
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From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 3

There Is No Safer Place Than A Mother’s Arms

An embryo annuls itself and that’s its only job. It gratefully accepts everything that happens to it and always perceives the upper one as good and benevolent.

My work is only to annul myself no matter what happens, whatever changes take place from one end of the world to the other. I keep myself in a state of bestowal, Hafetz Hesed, no matter what. This means that I exist in the upper one, annul my personality, my independence, and I don’t disturb the upper one as He influences me—let Him do with me whatever He wants. I’m like a baby in the arms of his mother, who doesn’t think about anything.

If you were carried in someone’s arms, how would you feel? Imagine that ten people are holding you now and lifting you up in the air. Although they will undoubtedly be strong enough to hold you, you will tremble and feel afraid to find yourself in the arms of others. You will be afraid that you might fall and will doubt whether they have enough strength to hold you.

A baby has no such doubts. Have you seen how peacefully a baby sleeps in his mother’s arms? This is the attribute of self-annulment in relation to the upper one. A baby does it naturally. But thanks to these forces an embryo grows in its mother’s womb. This means that being in the AHP of the upper one, it annuls itself no matter what happens: for better or worse, no matter what state it is in. An embryo only increases its loyalty and annulment.

This is called the the root level of the desire (Aviut Shoresh), and this work isn’t simple at all; it’s actually very hard. By that you sculpt your first form. No matter which Light comes, you only annul yourself, no matter what you feel: pain or pleasure, shortage or abundance. Thus you form yourself and become similar to the Creator in your first form called “an embryo.”

An embryo is in its mother’s waters and shapes itself into the spiritual Partzuf: the 10Sefirot that filled by the Light of Nefesh. When it ends its self-annulment and there is nothing else it can do on that level, on the root level of desire, it has to move forward, and this is called birth.

The difference between these states is immense since by being born, a spiritual embryo begins to work with the vessels of reception. He feels that he is detached from the upper one. The birth is the most significant change of all the changes on our way.

An embryo is each of us who annuls himself before the others, who become a mother’s womb for him. Our collective embryo is the field that connects us, which we want to create between us. If we all connect, the mother’s womb becomes the general revelation of the upper force where we all exist.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/29/2012, TES

A Black Box Sailing In The Waves Of Light

It is very hard to explain what spirituality is because it is a matter of feeling. If a person shares such feelings, he will understand what is being described. But if he is not on the same level and doesn’t feel what the author speaks about, he won’t understand anything at all.

All our work takes place in “Egypt,” in exile, when we don’t yet feel the Creator, the upper force that can help us rise above our desire to receive. This is a time of choice and it is the best time because this is when we learn how to work against our desire.

I have to constantly imagine that I am already in bestowal, in the spiritual world, in sanctity, and I do not create any partition, barrier, in the way of the upper Light that fills all of reality. I annul my personality, my egoistic “self,” and although I feel different states that go through me and summon different reaction in my ego, I have to try being only in pure bestowal.

It is as if I am already in the spiritual world, I’m immersed in a sea of Light by being totally equivalent to it. This is because everything that actually separates me from the Light is my desire to receive, my ego, which resembles a box that doesn’t let the light through. I put obstacles for myself, I’m the only one who stands out with his ego in the Light. Except for me everything is corrected and ready.

Only I see that this reality is distorted, that I’m corrupt, and that the Creator is evil and treats me badly. In addition, it seems to me that there is another authority except the Creator.

All our work is to imagine our state correctly, the way it actually is, and not what is depicted in our ego. There is nothing except the Creator, but my ego tells me that there are many different forces that make decisions and there is also me.

It seems to me that I feel and decide something myself, but even this isn’t true. The Creator is the one who sends me all these feelings so that based on the impressions I receive from Him every instant, I will be able to do the work and to annul myself, my thoughts that I seemingly think and feel independently, that I receive something from the environment, the group, and the whole external world. Instead, I have to imagine that I am totally under the control of the upper Light that fills all of reality.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/2012, Shamati #59

The World Through The Glasses Of Mutual Guarantee

Question: You said that the key to success is concessions.

Answer: Yes, willingness to concede is one of the necessary conditions. Learning about mutual guarantee should be a gradual process. First of all, we need to study human psychology and the psychology of the relationships between two friends, spouses, parents and children, neighbors, and relatives (for example, with mothers-in-law or people with whom conflicts are possible), and then we should proceed with studying the relationships in a workplace, with one’s nation, and with the whole world.

In other words, starting with close and understandable sensations that anyone can experience and by developing perceptivity, skill, and acuteness of feeling within people, we have to gradually bring them to working with wider circles of society. As a consequence, we’ll be able to understand which countries, parliaments, and rulers can unite with each other.

Let us imagine these structures and the form in which this can be realized. When we become involved in this study, we begin to understand what changes need to take place in the world.

We see that all of today’s leaders aren’t able to solve anything; they have not been brought up in the spirit of mutual guarantee and lack the knowledge of integral systems. They do not look at the world through the “glasses” of mutual guarantee. They need to gain the perception, awareness, and understanding of how to achieve that, how to connect one with the other, all the way to the point of attaining love. And of course, the willingness to make mutual concessions is necessary in this process.

This doesn’t mean that I conduct business negotiations with you, and while forming a contract I initially include clauses that will allow me to retract later in order to swindle you. We build honest relationships from the very beginning. From the very first item of any agreement it is clear to us that we cannot violate it. We cannot run away from each other.

It follows that all the problems, on all levels, are problems of upbringing. Mutual guarantee is the network of connection between us that ties us to one another in the entire world. It became revealed now, in our time. A few decades ago, in the 60’s, the founders of theClub of Rome started writing about it. At the beginning of the 20th century, scientists started talking about the fact that we are all interconnected through what they callednoosphere. Since then and to this day all kinds of research is being conducted in this area.

The system of mutual guarantee has become revealed, and it binds us together, not allowing us to run away from each other. By wanting to violate it, we can unleash terrible wars, but then suffering will still force us to reach this form of mutual connection, mutual concessions, mutual guarantee, and mutual love.

Someone might object, saying that humanity has already thought about this. Five hundred years ago, various utopians wrote about it, and then the communists, Kibbutzniks, and others. All of this is true, and we only need to understand that never before in history was this a mandatory condition of our development. There were individual people who saw that this is necessary for humanity and that ultimately, humanity will come to that. Thomas Mann understood this, and then the communists in Russia and in other countries, but they were all isolated individuals whom the people never followed. They foresaw to many years ahead, and it seemed to them that they could implement it immediately.

And we are starting to talk about this today because the all-encompassing crisis shows us exactly what we are lacking: We lack mutual guarantee. In other words, it’s happening not because we wanted it to happen, but because it’s necessary for our development, and nature is forcing us towards it.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 5, 1/5/12

The Best – For The Friends

Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: With this collective responsibility, each member of the nation was liberated from worrying about the needs of his own body and could keep the commandment, “Love thy friend as thyself” in the fullest measure, and give all that he had to any needy person, since he no longer cared for the existence of his own body, as he knew for certain that he was surrounded by six hundred thousand loyal lovers, who were standing ready to provide for him.

This is the condition: The upper force is revealed only if we really need it for unification.

Question: Where does this agreement come from?

Answer: It comes from the general desire. One is not able to correct himself without the other. The correction is made through the universal unity. The force that corrects needs to be common to everyone.

The force and the mind, the effort and the approach, everything needs to descend from Above. Everything accumulates into one and as if “sews” me to others.

This is what we need to think about. If we want this to happen, then first of all, we need mutual guarantee. After all, in the general mutual inclusion, every single point that is soldered with the others contains all the rest.

Question: Is our cry to the Creator our agreement to this?

Answer: I would say yes. Only actually it isn’t a forced scream. We reach agreement about our state, about the helplessness, and the need to reach mutual bestowal, mutual guarantee, mutual connection, and mutual assistance and support. When you begin to connect all of these things, you discover that you lack the upper force. Then you really need it, while previously your needs were of a personal nature.

You discover that you need the upper force in order to really fulfill the conditions of connection in mutual bestowal between everyone. But it’s not starry-eyed idealism already since the goal is to discover the true attribute of bestowal that lies above the needs of all.

Thus, here the general agreement is required: We carry out the unification but not for the sake of corporeal benefit. Thus, it arrives as a result of our search, our work in analyzing the state.

Question: By what does the friend complete me?

Answer: Without one another, we are not able to understand what we need to receive the Light that Reforms. We can’t reveal our real deficiency if I don’t help him and he doesn’t help me.

Question: Do I ask for the friends?

Answer: I try to pray for the friends, I worry that they will receive spiritual revelation, understand, and feel what the spiritual world is. When everyone supports each other, each one shows the correct desire.

You want something that seems to you like spirituality. And it doesn’t matter how correctly you picture it to yourself. Let everything be artificial, until we receive the Light that Reforms. And still, try to think about the friends: “I wish that they will achieve this before me.” If you initially wish for the greatest things for the friends, this is already spirituality.
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From the Arava Convention 2/24/12, Lesson 6

Outcome: One Upbringing For The Whole World

Question: What is the outcome of today’s lesson?

Answer: We are entering a new epoch. We stand before the necessity to change our mutual relationships, at the transition from egoistic competition to mutual guarantee, and after, to universal love. At first this occurs forcibly, under the influence of our current state and the pressure of nature, but then we will willingly shift towards mutual concessions and mutual concern.

In accordance with this, we need to build our system of explanations, education, andupbringing in such a way that over a long time it would be exerting an influence on an individual, on groups, on society, people, a nation, and on all countries together, until gradually, we all receive one upbringing and learn to live happily all together in our one home.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 5, 1/2/12

Mutual Guarantee: “Love Covers All Sins”

How can we correct ourselves in order to have a good, peaceful, and safe life? Otherwise, we’ll remain unemployed, with a crisis in family relationships and upbringing, and with problems in everyday life. We arrived at the point where the absence of mutual understanding and concern became the determining factor of our destiny. All of humanity is like one family, but this family is dysfunctional.

That’s why we are talking about the reconciliation that needs to happen with the help of a third force. When problems arise between spouses, they seek the help of a professional psychologist (it’s fashionable now to have a personal psychologist), who then gradually brings them closer to each other. He or she talks to each of them separately, talks to both of them together, asks questions, explains the situation, and obliges them interact and open themselves up to each other. He helps them to first understand themselves and then to understand their partner.

And then it becomes clear to each of them that even if they are opposite to the other, it’s worthwhile to make mutual concessions. And so one doesn’t lay out every complaint, and the other forgives and concedes in the things that he or she doesn’t like, as it is said that “Love covers all sins.”

We understand mutual “sins” since we are all egoists by nature and don’t take anyone else into consideration. But if it’s clear to us that there is no other choice, whether in a family life, in industry, or in ecology, then out of helplessness we’ll accept the method that will help us connect to each other. This method is purely psychological: talking to each other in order to better know and understand a person’s character or the peculiarities of an entire nation—to talk and not to be ashamed, to speak openly, like intelligent grown up people.

Yes, we are different, but we need to unite above the differences, without suppressing anyone or reproaching for unpleasant tendencies and properties. Everyone has them, but we rise above them and say: “Love covers all sins.” Sins exist, but gradually, out of love, we stop paying attention to them!

It’s the way a mother considers her child to be the most wonderful, the most beautiful. She is incapable of seeing anything bad or unworthy in him because love blinds her and she sees only the best in him. And even though there is bad in him too, she doesn’t notice it. But conversely, in a neighbor’s child she sees the negative and not the positive part because she has no love for him. But as soon as she feels love for him, she won’t be able to see anything bad even in him, but only good.

We see this in life. If you tell a mother about flaws in her child’s character or behavior, she won’t agree with that. She will either completely justify him or deny everything altogether because she truly doesn’t see anything bad in him. This is what we call, “love covers all sins.”

Likewise, one gradually comes towards the mutual guarantee that we need to reach. There is no choice, and we are beginning to examine and study each other from afar. But from the beginning, this study needs to be aimed at building the connection of love above the differences.

That is, we make concessions in advance, and then we get an opportunity to also unite on a level of feeling. And when we come closer, the world becomes peaceful and secure. We aren’t afraid to let our children play outside by themselves since any person will look after them no worse than us, and we’ll care this way for others. If we dream and imagine a good society, then of course it has to be a society in which the law of mutual guarantee is observed.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” Episode 5, 1/5/12

Working With Disturbances

Question: If disturbances come to me in the form of foreign thoughts, can I just stop thinking about them and ask the upper force to direct me back on the right path?

Answer: If I get a disturbance from the upper force, why should I ask It to remove it? It is the same as when my mother asks me to assemble a new toy from a Meccano kit, an airplane or a car, and I say: “I don’t want to.” How can I grow? If I want a car that is already assembled, I will grow into an undeveloped child. It is because when I assemble, take apart, or break something, then everything happens the way it should. Just like all those years at school or university when we were constantly given assignments. They could have given us the answer. Why do we need disturbances?..

Question: Suppose an external thought came to me. Do I simply break through it further, realizing that this a disturbance, and think about how to work with it?

Answer: Work with a disturbance should be done in the following way: After you focus on the idea that everything comes from the Creator, you should process this disturbance together with the friends. That is all! You will not be able to direct yourself at Him on the same frequency. You cannot. You can do it only together in the group!

When you are together in one group, and all kinds of mutual relationships exist between you (we are talking only about the relationships that are relevant to the goal), then this single force of nature exists around you and above you. You have to create a resonant circuit in yourself like in a radio receiver, which tunes to Him, and then you will pick Him up. This force fills everything around and inside you, but you can pick it up when you tune into the same frequency.

People come to the group with their problems, with the minuses. What happens next? They connect with each other, and all the minuses disappear because we only desire to work on bestowal. I rise above my problems—they remain below. There are plenty of minuses below me and below each of our friends, but we understand that they are created in order for us to aspire to mutual bestowal, so that we work on these minuses.

In what way? They come from a single unified force. It does this on purpose so we rush towards it in spite of the problems that arise in each of us, and most importantly between us. After all, great hatred, dislike, contradictions, and misunderstanding arise between us: No one understands me, and I do not understand anyone; no one appreciates me, and I do not want or appreciate anyone.

Everyday problems are more or less discarded, but the problems that exist in the group and repel us from each other are the central problems. “Stacking” these problems, aiming them forward together, we as though tell the Creator: “You will not divert us from the path. We understand where this comes from. You put all these problems in front of us so that we’ll rise above them, like above Mount Sinai (the mountain of hatred), to You.”

Here, against all the disturbances that He causes purposely, you generate a completely new property: unity. Thus, you begin to discover Him between you—His quality, His force. This is your radio receiver, your sensor, the sensory organ that you create in yourself. In it, you immediately reveal Him—not somewhere outside or above, but here, inside.
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From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/12, Lesson 3