As Long As The Drill Doesn’t Reach The Nerve

We can find many excuses for ourselves, but if we face the laws of nature, then we must comply with it. The wisdom of Kabbalahspeaks about absolute laws. The Kabbalists explain to us how the system of reality is structured. And we think that they aren’t rigid laws, but are something that changes according to our desire: the relations between people, the connection between man and nature, destiny, luck, and various events of yesterday or tomorrow.

All of these illusions come from the lack of knowledge of the system, from the lack of understanding that it is defined in an exact system and it is not in our power to change it. There is nothing to do. It is that way and only that way! We even treat science as if we can somehow get around it. This comes from the lack of feeling that you are connected with the system by thousands of threads, billions of nerve fibers.

Imagine that coming from you are an endless amount of threads that connect you with all of reality, and all of them are especially sensitive, like exposed nerves. Everyone knows what an unbearable pain it is when you suddenly touch an exposed nerve from an aching tooth. All of us have felt this once. And from you are millions and billions of exposed nerves that connect you with others. All of us are wrapped in these thin white fibers, as if immersed in gel.

Imagine how sensitive you are to everything that happens in any place, anywhere. You depend on everyone and they, in turn, are dependent on you. We are tightly connected through these thin, nerve fibers, completely in everything. No matter what happens, your question is if this touches your nerve or not.

We are now detached from this understanding, but slowly we get closer to it through suffering. The drill between us doesn’t directly touch our nerve. It only drills a hole in the tooth and sometimes causes a certain pain, which we are able to bear. And sometimes we even manage to escape from the dentist, refusing treatment, what will be, will be.

And here it is not possible to give anesthesia and get rid of the pain, since the pain is the measure of the problem. The pain points to the place of the problem; you can fix it: go to the doctor and take medicine. In this case, if you are able to cure a physical disease, then it is allowed for you to use anesthesia. But it is not possible to give spiritual anesthesia since you have to correct its reason. And for this, you must discover the system of connections.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

The Future Of The World Is In Connection

Question: Today, when life seems tasteless and humanity encounters endless problems, what can the wisdom of Kabbalah tell us about the meaning of life?

Answer: Kabbalah says that we can find the meaning of life only if we are adapted to nature. Then we will receive fulfillment, which is in fact the meaning of life.

So I can receive fulfillment if I am adapted to nature. The adaptation generates a connection, and then whatever is in nature is also found in me. I become the inner system that is connected to nature.

How can we connect to nature, to something that is whole, eternal, and great? It is only possible through the similarity of properties. The similarity of properties refers to being inbestowal and connection, just like the rest of nature is connected. The still, the vegetative, and the animate levels in nature are all connected to one system. But it’s as if man is left outside the system in order to connect to it by himself consciously, willingly, by making his own efforts in order to find the way to fit into it and become an integral part that completes the whole system, just like the last part in a jigsaw puzzle.

This is what we have to reach. To the extent that we approach this state, we will feel better since there is a whole life in the general picture of the puzzle.

So the wisdom of Kabbalah speaks about how to receive, to gain, to make the best out of our life in which everyone suffers, and to move on to a better life.

This is fulfilled by connection. The connection depends on a person’s ability: There are people who are brought to high levels of spiritual connection and unity by their deficiency, and there are people are brought to the simple “common” connection by their desire and deficiency, but one way or the other, the future of the world is in connection. So everyone will surely find his own form and intensity of connection according to his internal attributes. The main thing is to complete the picture.

This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us. So, it has nothing to do with religions and beliefs. If a person feels bad and connection seems the right solution for the world, if he feels internally that this it worth it, that it is good, beneficial, and desirable, then he will reach the wisdom of Kabbalah or the system of the integral education.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

A Tuning Fork For The Out-Of-Tune Strings Of The Soul

You have to humble yourself not before certain people but before the means for attaining the spiritual goal—the study, theteacher the friends and the group. It’s because these are not just people, but a system, and if you annul yourself before it you will enter your first spiritual state: Ibur (embryo). Of course, there has to be a different kind of annulment with regard to every means; with regard to the study, you should examine its essence and why it’s needed and what it is that you study.

The system is revealed to you in the image of the teacher and the friends. It is one upper system, which by its revelation to you depicts in you the images of Kabbalists throughout the generations and of the friends. It’s you that builds these images, and they are in you. It says, “Thou shall not make statues or images,” in the sense that you are forbidden to perceive them externally, that they exist outside your feeling. You are in front of the Light that depicts all these discernments in you.

So the work is in imagining only the Creator’s bestowal upon you instead of all these images. But in this general behavior of the Creator, you are allowed to discern all the individual manners with regard to which you can focus yourself.

It’s as if you are playing a chord on a musical instrument and you need several strings that are perfectly tuned relative to one another. In order to do that, you have a teacher, friends, this world, and the study. If you tune all the “strings” correctly by perceiving everything as coming from the Creator, you will be able to come to Him.

If you regard the teacher, the friends, the group, the study, and the world as coming from one upper source, then everything that you do to tighten the connection with them allows you to tune yourself more accurately. It’s as if you are checking every one of your strings according to the sound of this tuning fork and thus advance.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Not Entitled To A Day Off

Question: What is a sin in the internal work that corrupts its outcome?

Answer: If a person is already incorporated in the internal work but is now too lazy to constantly support it and to add to it, it’s considered a sin. Since if he doesn’t advance, it means that he is going backward. It’s impossible to stop and stand in the middle.

We sometimes think that we can allow ourselves to take some time off and to rest from this work, but in spirituality there are no days off, the clock is constantly ticking and the counter constantly counts our efforts, so it isn’t like our world where we can stop and be idle, to go to sleep and not do anything until the next day.

This does not exist in spirituality. Perhaps I don’t perform any physical actions, but during this time many Reshimot (spiritual genes) go through me, and if I don’t fulfill them, then it means that I go backward. So I have to make sure that I constantly do something.

My advice is to place yourself, even passively, under the maximal influence of the environment: to listen to tunes and songs, to read our material, to see a lesson one more time or to listen to it, to be among friends. But we have to be very careful in using this means of communication, since along with the gain and the great benefit it can also bring about great loses and harm if we don’t use it correctly.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/7/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Losing Yourself In Others

Question: During the process of integral games, a new kind of social relationship is practiced. What does it mean to be “integrated in others”?

Answer: It means that I don’t aspire to “enter “into another person, but I seek our integrated, mutual component.

I am interested in the group as an exit from the egoistic feeling of “I” to the altruistic “we,” where my ego gets lost, where I stop thinking about myself, and think about us, where I solve problems only according to our relations.

It is only an exercise and training to create the pre-conditions of these feelings, desires and mutual intellect within me.

During the discussions I am not involved in criticism of others or in analyzing their answers, but in trying to rise above my ego and above my understanding, and grasping everyone as “we,” which means, as if being integrated in everyone, so in this way to create an exit from myself.

It is not their opinion that interests me, but my exit from myself, achieved through practice in working in the group.

I listen to the opinion of everyone in the circle that is composed of ten people and try to connect with each person’s opinion, to grasp it as mine own. And the nine answers, except for my answer on some question, allow me to constantly be outside myself. During my turn, I give an answer according to the other opinions, just adding to them.

In principle, it isn’t important what questions are asked and what answers are given. This technique was designed to begin to feel how a person can rise above himself. I try to accept each opinion as my own, above my own personal opinion, and try to calibrate, to annul my analytical device.

It doesn’t matter what conclusion we arrive at. What is important is that each one of us rises above himself.
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From KabTV’s “Integral World” 11/27/12

The Point Of “No I”

Question: If I have to totally annul myself, by remaining as one point while everything else comes from the Creator, where is the volume in which I feel my existence, my spiritual reality?

Answer: This is called the “spiritual world.” Think only about how to penetrate it. Your existence there begins after you cease to exist. When you cease to exist in your current form, you will appear there.

Now it seems unclear, but from this negative form you already begin to move towards the Light; you have the feeling that this place may actually exist and is real, but that it’s beyond the Machsom (barrier), beyond the border after which the “I” אוי(: aleph – nun- yod) becomes “no I” (אין: aleph – yod – nun).

This point of “no I” is in the new space that is felt by this negative form as a very solid, strong field, that fills it and that is essential. But with regard to the previous state, with regards to my egoistic “I,” it is called “no I” and this fills me with joy.

In our world joy is felt as a filling in the desire to receive, but in spirituality joy is felt as “in Him our heart shall rejoice.” I am very happy that you have such thoughts and that they make you suffer since you feel disoriented. Later you will feel the joy when you attain the goal. Now you have to be happy that you are on the way to it and that you have at least risen above your ego a little. The stronger the Light shines and the more the group strengthens you, the more you can rejoice that you have transcended yourself.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/4/13, “The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

How Can I Stop Thinking About Myself?

Question: In what vessel does a person discover spirituality?

Answer: In the Returning Light, which means in bestowal, when he worries about the other more than about himself, when the other is more important to him than he is.

Question: What does a person have to annul in order to acquire the spiritual vessel?

Answer: Thoughts about himself. How can I, who can only think about myself, switch to a state in which I will totally change myself for the good of others? Where can I get such a desire? Where can I find the powers to make such an effort?

Here the Light that Reforms helps me. It’s called the “miracle of the exodus from Egypt:” I take my feelings (heart) and mind out of the control of my desire, of the caring for myself and put them into the other. Of course, I can’t do this by myself. A prisoner can’t release himself from prison, and you can’t pull yourself by the hair out of a swamp. After all, the desire and worrying about myself are all that I have.

But the Light comes and takes this concern out of the desire and puts it into someone else. Then I begin to care about him like a mother worries about her baby. After all, the same thing happens with her, but on an egoistic level: It’s as if she is hypnotized in her concern for her baby, looking at him all the time and worrying about him. If we didn’t know about such processes in this world we might think that she had lost her mind.

This is also the work of the Light, but a mother is not required to ask to be able to love her baby, she is simply given this love from Above. In our case, however, it’s different. A person is given a choice, “Do you want to remain on the “animal” level? Go ahead. But if you want to rise to the spiritual level, then you need to activate this force.”

You need to constantly improve, become wiser, and, in short, you need to acquire the Creator’s mind in order to activate Him. This is the difference between the two levels—the fact that you activate Him. It’s about this that it says: “My sons have defeated me.”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/6/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

Preference: Primary Sources

Question: The exercises and games that we use in the course ofintegral education, in general, are nothing new. Many training companies use games in similar combinations, organize roundtables, and do so in a much more sophisticated way.

Answer: We do not need to learn from others. This can only confuse us because we are not interested in the level where the other companies are.

That is why it is desirable, as in everything else, to use only our own Kabbalistic sources, to follow only them. And then, as they say, we will see.

When you follow the primary sources, you develop naturally, and based on what is revealed to you on the spiritual path, you transfer this to the students. I never take anything from the external sources: philosophy, psychology, new age, etc. I always felt some rejection towards them and think that we do not have anything to learn from that.
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From a Talk on Integral Education 1/20/13