Come To Rejuvenate

Question: What is a convention for you?

Answer: For me, it is a desperate, serious work, tension, and great joy—everything together. It’s because I see how every second this huge general desire is boiling in a “pot.” And this desire works, even if people don’t realize it yet, and reaches the boiling point inside. I feel this, and all of it fills me and gives me strength.

Imagine, after a convention my hair gets darker. That is, there is an influx of energy there, and it actives all sources of life. So come to rejuvenate!
[76223] 
From a Lecture on Unity Day Around the World, “Preparation for the Congress” 4/22/2012 

Am I Righteous Or Am I A Sinner?

What is the connection between the hatred of evil and the salvation from evil? On one hand, simply by being human, we understand that when I hate something I distance myself from it. This guards and protects me, helps me to be safe from evil. But this does not work in the spiritual. There it must evoke the upper Light in order to correct me.

There is another instruction for understanding this, which states the world is only created for two states, either the state, perception, and comprehension of absolute evil or the state of absolute goodness. There is no other option. In other words, the world is created either for absolute sinners or the absolute righteous; it is one other the other, there is no third option. This is why it is worse to be an incomplete righteous than an absolute sinner. How can this be? This is what is written. So what are the teachers showing us?

The fact is, they write, that from the Creator’s perspective there is nothing in the world that might have dual meaning, a little bit of goodness and a bit of evil. From the Creator’s perspective there is only absoluteness—either absolute goodness or absolute evil, either absolute bestowal or absolute reception.

And for this reason, when a person wishes to advance toward the goal, he has no right to accept that there is a bit of this and a bit of that in him! This is the worst quality, the worst state!

Accepting it is a bad quality. Being in this and consoling yourself that there is nothing horrible about this is a bad state: There is a bit of this and a bit of that in me, I am no worse or better than others, there are these and those. When I console myself with these kinds of thoughts I will neither be able to reach the state of absolute sinner or absolute righteous. When I fail to reach these states, I stay suspended somewhere and I lack the point of reference for advancement.

From the Creator’s perspective, there is no difference between good and evil. There is no double meaning from His point of view: absolutely everything is good.

In our state, in our world, when a person begins to perceive that everything comes from the Creator, then he is already analyzing his attitude towards the world. If everything comes from the Creator, I either perceive that the world comes from a good, eternal, perfect source or that the world is full of suffering, contradictions, and meaninglessness. And if so then I do not believe, feel, and acknowledge that the world is really eternal, perfect, and good as the One Who created it and fills it.

Why do we need this? When, from the beginning, we perceive the world as perfect, good, eternal, and full of Light, then the problem is in us, in our perception of the world, in our sensations. When I feel that it is opposite to this absoluteness that I am able to imagine, then I evaluate myself, my qualities, as opposite and egoistic. However, when I do not see anything good in the world, then I am a sinner—I am not justifying the Creator, I accuse Him of creating this. And if I do not feel either thing, then I do not even acknowledge the fact that He exists and that He has created and maintains all of this; in other words, I deny the presence of the upper force.

A person must clearly understand his attitude toward the world from which he comes, and what it is like in relation to the Creator.
[76117]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/25/12, Lesson 5

In Anticipation Of The First Face-To-Face Meeting

Our goal is to reach a true prayer, which means to understand what we lack. It is true because it is accepted Above. This means that a deficiency on the part of the lower and a deficiency on the part of the Upper have to be equal, the lower should ask for exactly what the Upper wants to give him.

This means that I have to feel that I only lack bestowal and the understanding that only the Creator can give me this filling: the force of bestowal and the ability to bestow, all the necessary conditions. The Creator has to reveal the desire to bestow and how to reach it inside me by showing me upon whom and what I can bestow.

This whole system of connection is called Torah. And both the Light and our ability to bestow are included in it. But until then I have to work and first of all check what I want, what desires there are inside me, and to what extent they are all in order to receive.

Then I become included in the right environment and with its help, I gradually begin to change. I already begin to hear that the spiritual world isn’t meant for self-pleasure, but for the good of others. I realize this gradually and with great difficulty. I hear about it, but it takes a long time until I really understand this in my mind and feel it in my heart.

There is a great distance between simple awareness and actually doing something. We have to exert ourselves while in our natural ego in order to perform actions that are totally opposite to it, that are aimed at connection and bestowal. Even though it may be artificial and against my will, it is still called “above reason.”

But what can fuel my machine, what can be the reward? After all, I can’t work so that others will feel better, I don’t see any benefit in it and I can’t even move a finger for this cause, I can’t perform even the slightest action. My nature doesn’t work on bestowal energy. I don’t feel someone else’s desire as my own in a way that I can fill it and feel as if I fill myself.

In the meantime, I don’t feel anything, and it is as if others don’t exist for me. To fill the others is against my interests. So I operate mechanically, as if I bestow upon them and connect with them. Actually I do it for my own sake.

However, I understand that this is what “You labored and you found” means! I exert myself, and in the meantime the Light influences me and changes something in my soul. Gradually I begin to feel the greatness of the Creator and the importance of the environment, but it takes years to reach this internal attitude.

I advance by first realizing that bestowal is good for my own sake, and gradually I begin to perceive the importance of the attribute of bestowal itself. There are ups and downs on this path. One time I may value bestowal more and another time I may want to use it for my own sake, to enjoy the fact that I am on this path. Sometimes I don’t think about it at all, but only about receiving, and then I wonder about wasting my time and I have doubts about the whole way. So I advance by going through all these states.

The goal of the advancement is to bring me to a true prayer. I receive all the elements of this prayer from the environment. There is nothing in a person himself that can bring him to spiritual attainment. He needs a teacher that will constantly guide him, he needs a group in which he fulfills the whole process, and he needs books through which he receives the Reforming Light.

These three elements are not part of our desire to receive and of the corporeal life. And they must be organized so that with their help we can attain the importance of the spiritual properties.

This is possible only by the Light. How can I otherwise wish for something that brings me no self benefit but only requires that I make efforts, and what is more to enjoy it. But the Light gradually cleans me and gives me this ability, and then I begin to value the spiritual connection with the Creator.

I attain a true deficiency, which is very powerful. Besides, its truth is proven to me since the Creator accepts it and responds to my request. Thus we meet Him for the first time “face-to-face,” the Creator’s deficiency connects with the deficiency of the created being.

This means that the Creator is revealed and then a person rises above his ego and begins to work in order to bestow. This whole process is divided into two parts: The first phase is the preparation for the true prayer. The moment we attain it, we begin to advance with it by gradually revealing a greater deficiency. But from the moment we attain this true deficiency our attainment of the Creator begins.
[76157]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/12, Writings of Rabash

The Correct Attitude Towards The World

The world is the picture, the hologram that the Creator displays for us today, and we are in it. We are involved in this illusion, and it is the reflection of our inner qualities.

Looking at the world, I see my reflection and can tell from what inner qualities I am made up. I like this person and that one not so much; this is like this and another like that, etc. Hence, all these qualities are inside me. Each of my little qualities draws a certain image for me: each of us, everything in the world from the still, vegetative, and animate nature.

That is why if I see something negative around me, I see this deficiency in me; otherwise, I would have seen only the absolute even upper Light.

Of course, we are very far from this degree. But we can approach this state and reveal it only if we are seriously engaged in self-assessment of what we see.

Therefore it is said that the world was created only for the absolute righteous or absolute sinners. When a person admits that he’s a sinner, he understands that he’s opposite to the Creator. When he sees and justifies everything—only if he doesn’t lie to himself, but really sees the world full of everything good, kind, perfect—then he’s directed to the Creator and is called an “absolute righteous.” If he has a mixed assessment, a mixed view of the world, then his state isn’t fully conscious. He’s missing the realization of evil and should continue to work on himself.

It turns out that everything depends on our clear perceptions: if I feel good in the world, or if I feel bad.

By the way, I hear from many of our friends that they were expecting something greater from the convention. They thought that now they would “grow wings” and would be raptured away.

That is, people who have been studying for several years don’t understand yet the essence of our correction. And this is natural that they don’t understand! In no way I am laughing at them or blaming them. I know what school I went through, and how difficult it was, very difficult! People don’t realize that they have to correct, no matter how paradoxically it sounds, their attitude towards the world.
[76114]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/25/2012, Lesson 5

To Inspire All Of Humanity

Question: How do we plan to inspire all of humanity? For instance, my husband is not interested in anything other than soccer.

Answer: I don’t think that you are unable to influence your husband. After all, a wife always influences her husband. His opinion will change. A woman knows how to make this happen.

The ability to influence a man was purposefully given to a woman. If it were not for her influence, men would simply be lost. It is indeed so because without a woman’s desire, which a man realizes in life, he would realize his own desires simply like a child. It would be something odd.

The reality is that the world stands on female desires, the desire for a home, family, children, and all things that are serious and necessary for our lives. This is first.

Second, what does it all mean in regard to the world? We serve as intermediaries between the world and the Creator. We have to show and explain to the world out method, which brings a person closer to love and bestowal and makes him correspond to the upper Light, the general force of nature.

We can base it on the opinions of thousands of scientists who research nature and discover a singular global quality through which nature connects elements, creates life, and operates it. If we explain and disseminate this to people, we will reduce the world’s suffering. The world will move toward goodness, connection, and life.

However, if we don’t do this, we will experience even greater suffering. We have no choice but to disseminate the method of correction of man, of human nature, to the world. If we want to, we will accomplish it. We simply have to give it importance.

We can think about love and bestowal only when we actually disseminate the method of correction. Let’s try together.
[75935]From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/2012, Workshop 1  

A Lack of Imagination Or A Lack Of Unity?

Question: Why is it so difficult to imagine the next level?

Answer: It’s not a lack of imagination, but a lack of interaction between people. If we were playing in the yard with friends, we would imagine everything clearly since there is mutual interaction between us. One person says something, another adds something, and in this way, a game is created.

Whereas here, we can’t get together yet; we can’t imagine the next degree. We are missing the mutual help. I still don’t feel the support of the friends in this. It isn’t your fault or mine. For this, we need training sessions that will gradually give rise to the next degree.

This level doesn’t exist within us yet. We are not to blame for this. We simply need to put in effort, and the upper Light will begin to form it within us. It already is building it within us, but this takes time.

We constantly yearn for the next level like children; we don’t understand, play, and make mistakes—but we want it! It doesn’t matter what we want because it just might not be what we need. However, these efforts invite the upper Light that gradually forms the next level within us: At first, it does it in our imagination and then in cloudy sensations. Afterward, the upper Light forms together both the sensations and thoughts, certain understanding of what should happen. And then what we learn, feel, and hear from other friends adds together. We suddenly begin to receive their thoughts and desires, and all this connects together.

If it’s difficult for us to imagine the next level, it’s a sign that we haven’t attracted enough of the upper Light so that it can give us as least some kind of impression, some format of the next degree. However, I am sure that we will overcome this.
[75793]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/2012, Workshop 1

How Can We Help The Light?

From Rabash’s lesson: It’s impossible to work without fuel. A person must receive something, he can’t work without a goal. Thus, our goal is to feel for whom we work.

People often ask how they can check how close they have come to spirituality. This is determined specifically according to the clarification for whom I work. I have advanced if I begin to act not as if I am standing against the Creator, but next to Him, on His side, trying to help Him, serve Him, and work in line with His program.

I think about how to give the Light the possibility to influence me more strongly, how to help the Light enter all my desires more deeply, to connect them. I feel that I am the slave of the Creator, connecting to Him stronger and stronger under the influence of the Light.

According to this sign, it is possible to feel how a person changes. Instead of thinking: “Me, me, me,” he now worries about how to assist the Light in entering the desires and correcting them.
[75956]
From Preparation for the Lesson 4/22/2012

The Human Part Of The Engine

Try to constantly see two states: the real state that you see and the desired state. Most of the time we are in a rather latent state, and the way a person sets himself depends upon him. If you are given positive or negative awakenings from Above, you begin to act. But if you are not pushed from behind, you are half asleep, like in a dream. It’s here that the major work is concentrated, the search for how to spur yourself on. This is in order to see your state in the true Light and to imagine the desired state, so that the gap between them will show you how wrong you are and how much more there is to do. Then you begin to look for the means to change your state.

It all depends on the awakening from below, but you get the energy for that from the outside because there is nothing in us except for a machine that wakes up under the influence of an external force. Just like an engine that operates only if it continuously receives fuel or electricity. The moment the energy supply is cut off, it immediately stops. This operating energy can come from the actual source, from the Creator, and oblige our engine to run, or it can come when a person summons it by himself. This is the human part of the engine, when a person connects himself to the electricity network and operates himself.

You can operate yourself only by the group, by the equivalence of form. The more adaptable you are to the upper energy source, the electricity supplier, in bestowal and in a desire to do good to others and the Creator, the more easily you’re able to connect to the source of electricity, to the Light. And then the Light will influence you and operate your engine.

The energy of life always comes from the outside, from the Light. We constantly receive a tiny spark of vitality that revives us and enables us to exist. In addition to this spark, we receive an awakening from Above, according to time, to different periods, and to individual and global changes that one must go through.

Everything always depends on our awakening below which is the main part. All our advancement is by the awakening from below, all the 125 steps we have to go through, as we perceive a deficiency on our part. We have to operate our machine ourselves, by yearning for bestowal. By operating this way we advance step-by-step and each time our actions become more qualitative.
[76044]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/12, Writings of Rabash

The Only One Who Will Help Me

By trying to unite in the group, we don’t just evoke the Light, but the Light that Reforms. It doesn’t correct me, but it gives me new details of perception. Its job is to show me that I am totally detached, opposite, broken, immersed in hate, and laying at the bottom. First, I come to this recognition.

Beyond that, the Light obliges me to feel that nothing can save me, and it is impossible to come out. It gives me the feeling that there is no force in our world that can correct me, although I seemingly do want to connect with the friends and love them.

However, I continue to work and do my best, together with the great hate for separation and the great desire to unite. With the help of the Light, I begin to understand that this is very important. Then, it reveals the most important internal point to me: the understanding that only the Creator can help me.

Thus I reach two things. On one hand, I begin to hate evil, and on the other, I come to love the good, meaning absolute bestowal, when I actually want to go out of my way toward others. I have acquired a big deficiency, the need for unity and love. In addition, above the call of the heart, I have reached the understanding that no one can help me except the Creator.

So, eventually, I acquire a deficiency for the Creator. First, I assumed that together with the friends, we will tear down the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality), and as a result of this demand, I will penetrate nature more deeply and discover the inner force hidden in it—the only one force that can help me. I feel that the desire aimed at the Creator is born in my heart.

This is the top, the climax of my work on the corporeal degree, with all the means available here. From this point on, I am “locked” onto the Creator: How do I ask, demand, oblige, and beg Him for help?

This desire develops and takes on new forms. For whom is the Creator’s help meant? I begin to see that until now, I wanted to use Him, even pay Him. However, I actually need the changes in order to bring Him pleasure. So, by changing internally, I begin to change our mutual relations, until above all my personal calculations I want all the changes to bring Him pleasure.

This is the work of the Creator: I work and consciously aim all the fruit of my work toward Him. Then, I ask to feel Him. I ask not as I do now, not for my self-benefit, but on the contrary, I tell Him: “Don’t reveal Yourself; otherwise my desire to receive will begin to enjoy. Just tell me what is for Your good. This is the only thing that I want.”

So, from the level of our world, I move on to another kind of work, done relative to the Creator. At the same time, I continue to work in the group, but now as one whole with it.
[75857]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/20/2012, “Preface to The Book of Zohar”

The Fulcrum

The environment is a tool for self-correction, and self-correction is the means for the correction of the world. This is because a person who changes himself just a little thereby changes the entire world.

Archimedes said, “Give me a place to stand and a lever long enough, and I will move the world.” The entire problem is that point, the fulcrum.

You can “move” the earth if you have the right and safe point to lean on. Even if the left part of the lever is just a meter long, if the right side is, let’s say, millions of meters long, even if you use the force of just one gram, you will turn the world.

You have to be a hero in quality, not in quantity. It is all about how much you prefer spirituality over corporeality, meaning internality over externality. This means that you choose the fulcrum. If you see spirituality as more important than corporeality, then no matter how much the earth “weighs,” you have a lever that can turn it. This is the “heavenly mechanics.”
[75820]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/19/2012 on Holocaust Memorial Day

A New Game

Question: You said that we have to imagine ourselves in a corrected state. How can I be sure that I imagine it correctly?

Answer: It’s impossible to imagine a correct state. The Light will gradually create this picture for us. This can only be done by the Light!

Our attempts resemble those of a child who does something with persistence, and even though he’s unable to accomplish a task, he still continues trying. You’ve seen the persistence of a  child who is playing or trying to do something. As a result, he acquires sensations, thoughts, and experience and thereby becomes an experienced adult. This is the only way it can happen.

We don’t reveal anything new here. We utilize the same Light as we did when we were children when we were trying to become adults. We are utilizing the same principles that are instilled in nature. This is the same exact law and there isn’t anything else.

You make attempts, you play with building blocks, but they fall down. You try to assemble a construction set, but you can’t. You do something, jump, and run around like a little monkey. However, these efforts evoke the upper Light, the concealed force of nature, which is responsible for your development.

This force developed us on the animate level and we became adults. Right now we’re consciously playing the next degree so that the same force will develop us and elevate us to that degree. Whatever it is you play, that’s what you will become. This is the way it works.

Today we’re playing a game of “Becoming Similar to the Creator.” If we continue playing this game, we’ll succeed! People develop through playing. You have to imagine yourself there. Imagine yourself as an adult; this is most important. You may ask: “What does it mean to rise to the next degree? After all, this is what we want to accomplish.” Go ahead and realize your desire! Fantasize about what it means and play this game, but base it on the knowledge you’ve obtained.

You read lots of articles and listen to the lessons: What is the meaning of the upper degree, the quality of bestowal, above egoism, a screen, Reshimot, Partzufim, the Light of Hassadim, the Light of Hochma, and so on? How do transitions become actualized? Try to constantly imagine that you are there and you’ll achieve it! All of nature operates according to this principle. There’s nothing new to add if you compare it to the development of a child.
[75898]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/23/2012, Workshop 1

Anyone Can Generate Happiness For Everyone

Other than personal informational genes (Reshimot) that influence the inner condition of an individual, there is another factor that has a big impact. This is the general awakening from Above (Etaaruta DeLaila), which is called “weekdays,” “Shabbats” (Saturdays), and Holidays, all of which denote perpetual relative “ups” and “downs.”

There are “seconds,” “minutes,” “hours,” “days,” “nights,” “special days of the week,” “extraordinary days of the month,” “special months of the year,” and “leap years” all inside one another. They play a tremendous role in our lives since our path includes these states.

Even the smallest state contains all others like a holographic picture. We’re connected with a special Light that shines for us and thus modifies the Surrounding Light so that on various days we get different types of the Surrounding Light even though we continue applying the same level of effort.

Our work stays unchanged, but by the mere fact that it’s a Monday, the Surrounding Light differs from the Light that we had on Sunday. We alter our labor “from below;” at the same time, conditions “from Above” also get modified in order to “meet” our work and equate it with the external conditions that are called “the world, a year, a soul.”

This applies particularly to various time segments such as “seconds and minutes,” etc. since it brings us in compliance with them. The awakening from Above is of great help to us. Changes in the upper worlds happen perpetually, every single second. It provides us with additional sets of changes that shorten our path to spirituality.

The system is built in an exceptionally wise way. Concurrent to our personal growth, we correct the whole system on a large scale because the awakening from Above originates an exceptional state within us. Thus, a microscopic change that we achieve impacts the whole system and improves other people’s condition by bringing them a lot of happiness.
[75816]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/17/2012, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

A Person Is Between Keter And Malchut

Question: How can we measure our advancement, in comparison to what?

Answer: I measure my advancement by checking to what extent I justify the friends, value them, and see them as the greatest in our generation, as special people, and to what extent I see the Creator’s image in them and want their attributes to become part of me.

I want to become the result of their influence because this is called the internal perception of the environment. What they imprint in me will be the form of the Creator, the human part in me.

I understand that this is how I should treat them, but at the same time I don’t see them that way. These are two feelings that don’t connect at all. On the one hand, I feel that the friends are great and special and that they are no different from the Creator. On the other hand, I understand that I treat them in a totally different way. This determines my attitude towards the Creator. If I disrespect the society, to the same extent I disrespect the Creator, it’s absolutely the same. If I want to change by the environment, it’s as if I place myself under the influence of the Creator.

If I can combine these two discernments, meaning hating and disrespecting the friends while at the same time respecting and valuing them, I attain these two polar opposite points. One becomes my Keter and the other becomes my Malchut and together they build my spiritual vessel.

By attaining such a vessel, I understand that this is my nature and I can determine that I am in “exile” because now I see the cause that requires my connection with the group and that I should place myself under its influence. On the other hand, I discover how far I am from connection, how I always forget it. I discover the difficulty in attaining it and how reluctant I am to do it.

Thus I see how harmful my ego is by not letting me be included in my environment in harmony, which means to be included and to melt in it as an integral part. This means that I transcend the Machsom (barrier) that separates me from the spiritual work.
[75729]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 4/19/12, Writings of Rabash