The Spiritual World – The World Of Qualities

The Creator isn’t a personality. It is forbidden to imagine anything in the immaterial spiritual world. It is a world of qualities, not even of forces in our current understanding of the word.

Today, when we think of a force, we imagine physical forces. And for the time being, I don’t argue with that. I don’t want to correct this degree of relation to spirituality because at least it gives us certain sensation of the field.

We envision a field, its intensity, characteristics, and the decrease or increase in its force proportionally to the square of the distance. This is how any physical fields expand. This gives us an opportunity to operate with at least something that exists around us in nature and technology. Therefore, for the time being we can imagine the spiritual forces and the spiritual field in this manner.

But in general, the spiritual field is a quality, a property. It’s not even a force.

However, we say the “force of reception,” the“force of bestowal,” “collision,” “mating while striking,” and so on. In other words, we speak of forces. But afterwards, we will feel that it’s simply just two properties that are interacting with each other in this manner: the property of the Creator and the one opposite to Him, the property of the creature that He made. They interact so that between them, between these two properties, man, consciousness, would arise. Consciousness—it’s what man is.

And when it comes to matter in our world, any quantum physicist will tell you that there is no matter, there aren’t even any elementary particles. Everything blurs, turns into a cloud, disappears into nowhere, and spreads like shagreen leather. There is no point, no forces, nothing, only nebulous cloudiness in the place of what previously appeared as particles simultaneously existing in all locations. That is, physicists are approaching the boundary of the physical world.

This is why it’s impossible to talk about something figurative. On the contrary, we will come to the point where all of our subsequent attainments, which we will call spiritual, meaning above-egoistic, will not be figurative, but qualitative.

For example, a dog sees the world as patches of scents. And we’ll perceive the world not as figures or images, but in a form of various qualities: greater egoism, smaller egoism, greater bestowal, lesser bestowal, interaction while striking, penetration, and so on. Only qualities! This is the upper world. And we’ll perceive ourselves in a form of qualities as well.

Even today you would like to see the essence of man and not his body.
[76635]
From a TV Program “Foundations of the Integral Society” 4/8/2012

Disturbances Can Be Different

Question: When I want to pass an exam or find a job, I automatically get a passionate “prayer,” a powerful craving for the desired result. Why doesn’t this happen on the path towards the Creator?

Answer: Putting it differently, when will you finally get a real reason for turning to the Creator?

Say, something very unpleasant happened to you. For example, someone has dealt you a serious insult, so much so that you’re ready to disappear on the spot just to prevent others from finding out. At the same time, there’s nothing you can do about it. And it is here in a completely hopeless state that you receive “a gift from above”; you begin to feel that there is none else besides Him and that the Creator sent this to you for a specific purpose; you only need to turn to Him and ask that it wouldn’t be happening.

You turn to Him with this request and suddenly feel shame: “What do I want? To avoid misfortune? Or to be with the Creator? Let the fear and shame remain if only through that I would maintain a connection with Him.”

This is how we move forward: We need the fear, which we cannot handle, coming from our egoistic desires, and then we will truly have a need for the Creator.

Are you ready for that? Do you want this to happen? Without any reservations or concessions?

Question: So there’s no way of escaping disturbances?

Answer: Join a group, and together with the friends you’ll fly forward like a rocket. Because then, instead of shame and other “animal” troubles, you’ll receive other disturbances caused by the inability to love your friends and unite with them. You exert efforts but aren’t able to achieve that.

Either way, disturbances are necessary since you won’t turn to the Creator as long as you see even the tiniest possibility of correcting yourself some other way. Only complete helplessness gives rise to your request to Him. And this means that you need to grow your desire, striving for unity and elevating it above all the others. Then you’ll discover that you can achieve anything except for that. And the gap between the desired and reality will evoke a cry to the Creator.

Question: What exactly needs to happen in a group so that the situation would reach the necessary escalation?

Answer: Exert all possible efforts and obligate the group to influence you. This is precisely what we call “mutual guarantee.”
[79340]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Exchanging Despair With Anticipation

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 Mitzva, “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.

There are two discernments here.

First, mutual guarantee and mutual concern free a person from worries about himself. Each one leans on others and everyone feels good. This is the “psychological therapy” to get rid of fear.

Second, we actually connect in order to be connected with the upper for ourselves. We want unity because we see it as a way to reach this connection. We always yearn upward and every action we take below should be aimed at the final goal and not for self-sedation. Different from a football team that connects in order to succeed, our connection is in order to raise us upward. Even if by that we get rid of all our problems, it isn’t the tranquility we are looking for. We are simply changing the previous troubles and the problems that push us to unite, to troubles and problems of a different quality that are created when we unite with the Creator.

This is called “upper fear,” and this is where love resides. Fear is a vessel, and love is its filling. Now I feel fear in facing the Creator, not in facing the threat of troubles, shame, despair, etc. I exchange all that to fear of being close to the Creator, to the desire to go to Him, to be close to Him in bestowal. This is my goal.

When will I yearn for it? When it doesn’t matter what is behind me, as long as it increases my attraction forward.

Thus we exchange the corporeal problems with spiritual problems called “love pangs.”

Question: But if the friends absolutely support me, don’t they extinguish my main problem, don’t they blur my desire to approach the Creator?

Answer: If I enter the group correctly, I acquire new fears instead of the old fears. No one is promising me a tranquil life; there is a restless adventure that I anticipate, which mountain climbers, pioneers, and world travelers experience. Their concern is the anticipation, they are constantly advancing toward something better; so I also feel a deficiency on the spiritual path, but I anticipate the joy, and this anticipation is better than the joy itself.

We know from experience that the pleasure disappears immediately, but the anticipation can make a person feel alive for many years. In spirituality this is really a filling, which we summon with the help of the Returning Light, above the desire to receive, clothed in bestowal.
[79343]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

Raise Your Desires To A New Level

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 Mitzva, “Love thy friend as thyself” in the fullest measure, and give all that he had to any needy person.

This means that we will receive such a great pleasure in our feeling that in our corporeal life we will not need anything but what is necessary for our existence, just as animals have no need for cookies, but only for the natural food that is enough for them. If our desires, which are not on the animal level, will stop confusing us and will rise to the “Human” level, we will get rid of all the surpluses that only pollute the earth and will leave only what we need for our basic necessities in the corporeal life.

By the connection with others we reach the fulfillment on the “human” level, similar to the Creator. Then, of course you don’t think about self-enjoyment except for what is necessary. We discover the Creator in the connection with others and so of course we give all our powers for the needs of others. This is why it says: “I reside within my people.”

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.

It is the supportive society that raises the importance of the connection in my eyes and provides a sense of security that I will not lack any of the basic necessities, which allows a person to care for everyone.

Later, this will also disappear and I will receive everything thanks to the unity with the society; I won’t have to see the system that provides proof for the love and concern of those around me. The love I feel for them will fill all my vessels.
[79445]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/31/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)“

The Height Of Unity

Question: What does it mean to “talk from the center of the group”? What is it?

Answer: When I stop feeling the “I” and begin to feel only “we.”

This feeling should be manifested in us during the discussion, as if we are inseparably tied in a single whole, in one body. I should leave the workshop with this feeling.

Question: Is this the “height of unity”?

Answer: Yes, already I cannot look at things differently. That’s how I see the world, myself, and everything around me.
[79124]
From the Virtual Lesson 5/20/12, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah”

A Shadow Over The World

A ladder, which divides the worlds into levels and the Light into portions, descends from Above, from the whole state, all the way to our world, until the total concealment. The concealments were created so that we will grow and fill them with our recognition, our work, with our exertion and efforts.

Instead of working with the vessels of receiving, we should begin to work with the vessels of bestowal, which means with the desire to receive in the intention of in order to bestow and not with the intention of in order to receive. Thanks to that, a person acquires freedom and independence, knowledge and the feeling that he’s in the Creator’s world, in the upper world.

In order to bring a person to this state, he’s shown concealments from a certain point in his development, which is happening in our times. For selected individuals this already happened in previous centuries, but today the whole world feels the concealment, a kind of obscurity, confusion, helplessness, and disorientation. There’s a feeling that we can no longer advance with the old attributes and forces to calculate our exertion and our desires to make plans and achieve results.

There is nothing to yearn for since the world is covered by a shadow. But this shadow is the same concealment, which we have to balance and to fill with our exertion. We know that this concealment was given to us on purpose, not in order to divert us from the good goal, but on the contrary, in order to bring us to the good but consciously, by understanding and feeling it as grown-ups.

Accordingly we have to determine the right way to advance, by clarifying what is required from us and how to organize all the means we have and our vessel, so that they will raise us above the concealment. We don’t annul the concealment, but we rise above it.

Everything depends upon how a person accepts these states. It says: “and each man shall help his friend,” the group has to give each one the powers as well as to constantly remind him that “there is none else besides Him,” and that we must ascend the levels of bestowal in “faith above reason.”

Then all the concealments will turn into a shade of Holiness by which we acquire vessels of bestowal, which are called “holy.” If we forget that, both we and the group, it’s a serious problem because we no longer exert ourselves in order to rise above the concealment; we are not thankful for the concealment and don’t accept it as something that’s desirable, as a springboard to ascent. Instead, we are angry about the concealment and ask for it and all the unpleasantness in life to be removed.

The concealment can be very strong, but a person should remember that there is none else besides Him. A person is only required to determine his relationship with the group correctly in order to raise a request and to draw the Reforming Light, and then he will attain adhesion above the concealment. This is how he will advance.

Otherwise it will turn into a shade of the Sitra Achra, of the egoistic forces, which will lead to a greater fall, which won’t allow him to fulfill himself correctly. No matter what happens, he should rise again and start everything anew. The main thing is to determine a framework for himself: a schedule for studying and for working in the group, which will remind him in every state that his obligation is to differentiate between the shade of Holiness and the shade of the Sitra Achra.
[79182]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/28/12, Shamati #8

Dividing The Spiritual Work

Baal HaSulam: “The Arvut, (Mutual Guarantee)”: And once the whole nation unanimously agreed and said, “We shall do and we shall hear,” each member of Israel became responsible that nothing shall be missing from any other member of the nation. Only then did they become worthy of receiving the Torah, and not before.

We are demanded to correct the general vessel, the desires that now feel that they are detached, foreign, and even opposite to one another. Before, the Light advanced them to connection and to unity, but now, because of the shattering, it separates them, leads them to oppositeness, to quarrels, violence, etc. We need the Light to come and to correct and connect these desires.

We don’t know how to correct them, how to put the parts of the broken vessel together, because we don’t know in advance what the vessel should be like and any assumption we make is only a guess. So what should we do? The point is that we don’t correct anything by ourselves. We ask, demand, and evoke the upper One so that He will perform the correction.

There is no way a person can correct himself. Each time we rise to a higher level, but can a baby be smarter than his mother? So every ascent is accompanied by a request and the upper in response performs the necessary work on it and moves us to the next state.

There is a request on our part and the work on the part of the upper. This is why it is called “God’s work.” It is He who works, and my work is to request.

If we are constantly careful in dividing this work, we save a lot of energy and are not confused. We must make sure that we do that and do not forget about it. We as a rule want to operate on our own, while the actual action on our part is to prepare ourselves for His work, to exert ourselves, and then to discover our helplessness. Baal HaSulam says: “There isn’t a happier state in a person’s work than when he is despaired of his own powers.” A person should understand that only the Creator, the upper Force, can correct him, and that’s the way it is all the time.

It isn’t by chance that our mission seems so difficult: to become “as one man in one heart,” to unite completely; how is that possible? These are illusions that can only lead to crisis and disappointment, to an even greater collapse than the one we’ve seen in the USSR for example. It is really so if we use the wrong means, the wrong program. But the method of Kabbalah provides us with a natural plan that is led by nature itself: Your life doesn’t have to be bad, you only need to discover, to identify that you are in a bad state. This is enough so that you will demand a change and you will receive the next state.

Thus our work is simple. If we all gather and work according to the law of mutual guarantee, the mission becomes much easier: We discover the evil and at the same time we discover the good, which means the source and the means for the changes. The tension between these two poles advances us to correction; we summon the Reforming Light and it performs the work. This arrangement repeats time after time.

The real life, the real ascent, will be revealed in the permanent closeness of people, in common circles, in discussions, in impressions, in excitement, and in mutual help. Thus we will discover more deficiencies in us in comparison to the corrected state of the general unity; we will discover the effectiveness of the greatness of the state of mutual bestowal, and we will activate the upper Force that performs the whole work. It says: “He that makes peace in Heaven, will make peace on us.” This is the order of the actions.
[79343]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

The Reaction Of Healthy Egoism

Question: Conventions where we actively were using the workshops as a way to unite produced the astonishing results.

Some friends, who in the past couldn’t find the common language, suddenly, by rising above personality differences, were able to unite. However, at the same time there were people who could not enter this process, they could not force themselves to sit in the circle.

Answer: The reaction of rejection is taking place. These people have a good and healthy egoism. They will too go forward, but we have to be patient for a little while and not push them! Gradually it will happen in them as a result of the influence of the common field. I know these problems many of which I experienced myself in different ways. Generally this is all legitimate.

In any condition, in any combination, in any possible form these friends should participate in common events; they can do it purely in the mechanical way, they can help do some work, sit at the computers, help with the general connection between the groups during that time. It doesn’t matter what they do. Gradually it will come.

There are such types of egoism, which have a very hard time establishing a contact. Even sitting together in a circle and talking about something only in the mechanical way is not so easy. In this regard we have to always raise another person and try to justify him.
[78792]
From the Virtual Lesson 5/20/12, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah”

Don’t Postpone Correction Until Tomorrow

In our longing to rise above our ego, to correspond to nature, to its attributes of bestowal and love, we need to be careful not to postpone our correction until “later.” This is what our ego pushes on us in its resistance to be diminished. Whoever postpones his correction from “ today” to “tomorrow,” “That which changes today for tomorrow for you,“ will discover his mistake only after many years of lack of advancement, “And he that can wait until tomorrow will get lost after years, G-d forbid.”

The reason for such a loss is the negligence in relation to the efforts in loving his friends, in relation to the necessary and sufficient methods of correction of all our ego.

We must understand what a huge force is hiding in the unity of the group and in each one of the friends. After all, we are not dealing with friends or a group, but with the huge force of nature. Each one of us is in unity with it, only the illusion of this world around us and all of its parts confuses us and hides from us the great forces and attributes of nature, of its system of governance regarding us so that each one of us will attain the attributes of bestow and love.

If we connect our forces to each of nature’s representatives, then in the assembly of friends, in love and friendship, we will discover forces that change us to be similar and to become equivalent to the upper force of nature.
[79150]
From Baal HaSulam, Pri Hacham (Fruit of the Wise), Letter 13, 1925

Want To Become An Educator – Teach Me How

Question: Assume residents of a small town began to study according to the integral methodology. How to build teams of future educators and teachers from them?

Answer: Initially, there should just be general groups. But a few special individuals will stand out in these groups in the first couple weeks of training. These people should be taken into account, and later on, should go through additional trainings.

If they wish to join the learning process as educators, teachers, and organizers of the educational process later on, then in addition to initial sessions, additional classes are held where they are taught the psychology of working with groups etc.

It is possible that in the future they will be put into self-organized groups that will study according to a special program.

Question: After going through the initial stage of integral education, there comes a second stage, an integral upbringing. How do we build groups for the second stage?

Answer: For the second stage, only people who are capable of integral upbringing should be selected. Small groups to train educators and teachers will be formed from them. They will go through a serious training both from our side and from psychologists and economists. These people need to get serious basic training so they can explain, persuade, and fend off any questions and resolve all occurring problems.
[79143]
From KabTV’s “Experimental City: Education” 3/3/12

The Union Of Plus And Minus

Question: What should I do if during the seminar I’m thinking a lot about unity, but it’s difficult for me to feel it?

Answer: Our work is happening between the feelings and the mind, in the middle line. One needs to keep to this middle line in one’s thoughts, desires, intentions, and relationships, in everything. A one-way bias in any direction is not acceptable. Since all of this is being revealed in creation opposite to the Creator, it must be revealed in the middle line.

The whole of the nature exists only thanks to the fact that it is in some medium, the intermediate states between the absolute plus and minus, in a balance between extreme states.

However, on the human level, balance is not reached by averaging, like it is on the still, vegetative, or animate levels, but by the means that the minus and the plus are uniting together! The left and the right lines do not balance themselves out in the middle, but are united at the center, and that is why this middle line turns out to be on a higher level than their simple sum. This is the difference between the middle line in our world and in the spiritual.

It needs to be understood that all of these concepts, which we are studying on ourselves, will arrive at a balance and will provide the right approach for us towards the solution of any kind of problems.
[78484]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, “Talk About Past Conventions”

Straight Through Two Points To Infinity

From the article “Concerning the Love of Friends,” by Rabash:And so it turns out that if one has love of friends and the attribute of love, the law is that one should want to see the virtue of his friend and not his shortcoming.

So it turns out that if he sees any shortcoming in his friend, it is a sign that it isn’t a shortcoming in his friend but in himself. This means that he has damaged the love of friends and so he sees shortcomings in his friend.

Therefore, he needs to see not that his friend corrects himself, but that he himself needs correction. And when he corrects himself, he will only see the virtue of his friend and not his shortcoming.

It says: “The Lord made an honest man, and they looked from many accounts.” (Ecclesiastes 7; 29). If we perceive the world according to our attributes, thoughts, and desires, we will not be able to get rid of the endless claims and will not be able to reach an agreement, a common denominator. There are egoistic accounts constantly going on in our mind, which do not let us rest and make us run around unnecessarily.

Aiming towards the truth begins from the point in which we feel that we are in the world ofEin Sof (Infinity), meaning in “there is none else besides Him.” And if I see anything else, it means that my attributes are not adapted to Ein Sof.

There is concealment from Above, the diminishing of the Light according to the 125 degrees. Therefore, I am not in the Light of Ein Sof but on some level of its concealment considering the next higher level as Ein Sof, because I cannot perceive it in my desires. If I perceive such a difference between the ideal and the possible, I understand that instead of the world of Ein Sof, I see this world before me in which there is both good and evil, but this is merely an imprint of myself on the background of the white Light. It turns out that there is nothing to correct but myself, and this is the second point that determines my direction.

This means that I am in the world of Ein Sof and I only need to correct my perception, as it says: “One judges according to his own flaws.”

In order to help us attain correction, there was a very serious preparation called the shattering of the vessels. Because of that, each of us feels that he is detached from others, as if they exist without any connection to him and are strangers to him. This is why we feel that the world is full of details: the inanimate, vegetative, animate, and speaking, each of which has its own way of existence, its own fate and purpose, and I am just one of them.

But if I want to attain the world of Ein Sof, I must connect everything to myself, which means to correct my perception to such an extent that I will be able to see that everything is actually in my hands. Everything depends on me, and I have to tilt the whole world to the scale of merit. If I correct myself, I will see that I have corrected everyone.

The world is depicted to me as full of different attributes and differences, but this is because I haven’t attained inside me the agreement and the connection of all my attributes, desires, and thoughts.

Therefore, we see such a big, wide, and complicated world, so look from the side will help us connect all the matching details inside me, because everything I see on the outside is actually inside me. I perceive everything through my different egoistic thoughts and desires, and so I see so many components in the world. But if I unite all these attributes inside me, then all the attributes will merge in harmony into one whole, as one integral global world, as one system. We all have to reach such a perception of the world.
[79056]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/12, Writings of Rabash

There Is No Advancement Without Conclusions

Question: During the workshop should we stress the point that we want to achieve in the beginning and the conclusion we have reached in the end?

Answer: In general, we should always draw a conclusion. The fact is that we don’t have enough time to ask everyone what conclusion he has come to and to give him an opportunity to share his impressions and what he has accomplished. But in any case, everyone should be making a conclusion.

It would be good if everybody would write about their impressions and wishes and would send them to our general email address. It doesn’t matter if you don’t receive a response. The fact that you are writing to our single general email address and are trying to add it to our common bank, and you reacted to this somehow this will receive a reaction.

At the end of the workshop it is desirable to hear impressions from each group, but if many groups participate in a workshop we at least need to hear impressions from a few of them.

The workshop ends with a common song, a melody. Those who have an opportunity can signify the end of the workshop with a small festive meal.
[79409]
From the Virtual Lesson 5/20/12, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah”

A Profusion Of Questions About The Workshops

Question: Does a feeling of irritation and hatred towards each other appear during the workshops?

Answer: Not necessarily. We shouldn’t wait for it. But if it appears, it means that we can rise above it. But, in general, we can be in such a good field that it will not appear.

Question: Once, I came to the workshop downhearted and left it full of happiness. Now, I am always looking for this sadness before the workshop. Is it correct?

Answer: No! Why should I look for something, especially something bad? You shouldn’t! I rise from good to better.

Question: Is it desirable that there is no walking around during the workshop?

Answer: No! Only if a person has problems with the functions of the body, then there is nothing you can do; it’s above nature. There are no other excuses!

Naturally, all the phones must be turned off; everything is absolutely quiet: Now, we are working on the ascent to the spiritual world, to the next degree. It is possible that this will happen during one of the workshops, or between them; it doesn’t matter, but in general this action is the ascent to a spiritual degree.

Question: How should you respond if the group suggests that you should leave the workshop because they think that you are disturbing them?

Answer: If the group thinks so, a person must obey. Later, he may require an explanation, but at the moment he has to leave the room, and most importantly quickly, without arguments, to let others continue to unite.

Question: Sometimes pauses occur during the workshops.

Answer: They arise because you don’t want to empathize! You don’t include what the friend says into yourself. Then you would just get a complete picture.

The same is true in the classroom, unless it’s a lesson that perceived solely by the mind.

Question: Does one need just to hold this center of the group within himself?

Answer: You do not need to hold this center. If you are always trying to be included in the others, you inevitably find yourself at the center.
[78954]
From the Virtual Lesson 5/20/12, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah”

What Is Born In The Center Of The Group?

Question: What do we give birth to together in the common center of the group?

Answer: Every time in the center of the group, we give birth to the force of connection, unity, guarantee, bestowal, and love above our egoism, on its foundation, but rising above it. And so, we create the condition for the revelation of the upper Light, a place for the revelation of the Creator. It is called Shechina, because Shochen, the Creator, ascends the throne in it.

The center of the group, from the perspective of desires, is a sensation of the extent to which we want to connect all these desires together. Man sees that the whole world depends on him, and on the other hand, he sees the extent to which he depends on the whole world. It is a twofold feeling. One moment, I feel myself standing in front of a perfect system; the next moment, I see that the system is all broken because of lack of my participation in it.

We always reveal two polar opposite qualities. But by reconciling them by compensating with the upper Light, we reach the middle line. This middle line includes in itself a multitude of components; it is not necessarily a direct path but something in the middle between the right line and the left line. It is not simply their averaging-out but their compensation of each other to 100%. A 100% thief and a 100% altruist-philanthropist connect in the middle point and use both qualities in all their force, not by half.
[78660]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/12, “Talk About the Workshop”

My Friend Is A Representative Of The Creator!

Question: How do we work during a seminar, how do we listen to one another?

Answer: A friend can say things that I might or might not understand. He can say things that I think are great or maybe something foolish. In any case, I now perceive him as a manifestation of a representative of the Creator: The Creator is influencing me through him.

If I am repulsed by my friend’s appearance, expression, the actual meaning of his words, or everything else, I might not perceive him or want him. And this is a wonderful exercise! I need to rise above this! If he is a representative of the Creator, since “There is none else beside Him,” especially at an event like this that we are participating in, then I need to elevate my friend and try to penetrate the spiritual essence through him, which is presenting all of this to me and also presents itself this way. I must rise above myself to a state, where I will perceive everything in it as absolute goodness, absolute bestowal, an absolute spiritual quality—despite anything that I am feeling on the inside, despite the fact that I do not have it.

And it is a very good thing that these two qualities are manifesting in me: my egoistic attitude towards my friend, when everything that I see in him does not take any criticism at all, and on the other hand, on the contrary, when I treat him through faith above reason, as a representative of the Creator, because nothing should come from anyone in the world that might be evil, bad, imperfect. And if it exists in me, then it is mine; I am looking at him with my own eyes.

This is why, if I am able to note these two states in me, then I have already done certain spiritual work. We must put together all the highest and lowest critical states in relation to one another, and we will have a common vessel—Malchut, which is on the bottom and consists only of unpleasant things—and it will keep getting brighter and worse in us, and we will be able to keep rising towards Keter over it. Then we will reach such distance between them, such tension, which will equal the state when the Surrounding Light will turn into Inner Light and shine there. And then we will acquire the first spiritual degree.

What does this do? We raise MAN towards Malchut of the world of Atzilut, which connects us together, and there we establish ourselves for the first time as newborns. And a person cannot be born alone, but only a minimum of ten people.
[78780]

Changes That Lead To Equality

Question: What is the center of the group?

Answer: The center of the group is the center of our reality, its utmost spiritual point. Reality doesn’t exist on its own, but exists in regard to the person who attains it. It is only possible to attain reality in the center of the group where I annul my ego and connect with the others equally so that it is stabilized inside me.

At the same time, I change the relationship between us on purpose, sometimes I subdue myself before the friends by seeing them as the greatest in the generation, and other times I rise above them in order to bestow something from myself. Eventually, by looking at the group once from above and once from below, I find an equal attitude towards it. This equality doesn’t exist at first; it is a result of my exertion.

On the one hand, I yearn as much as I can to be above the friends in order to help them, but on the other hand, I place myself below them in order to live and to be the one who receives through them. By these two poles, I suddenly discover what it means to be equal, although I didn’t aim towards this before and didn’t see this point. I see myself inEin Sof (Infinity) higher than everyone else (+∞), and at the same time in Ein Sof lower than the friends (–∞); suddenly I find the center of the group where everyone is equal and discover that it actually exists. My corporeal life is left behind and only the devotion remains, the mutual guarantee, adhesion with everyone. I feel that I increasingly summon the Reforming Light, the Surrounding Light, which fills the whole “space” of my attributes. By discovering more powers, more support, more care from the outside, I feel that I am being stabilized, and that is the center of the group.

In the center of the group, I really discover the group, the friends, and no matter what they discover, in my reality everything is completely accurate. This is because the world of Ein Sof already exists, and the descent into this world is only meant to build the steps of the ladder of the spiritual revelation, the recognition, the understanding, and the feeling in us. When these steps appear in a person and he begins to climb them, he doesn’t depend on anyone: Everyone is in Gmar Tikkun (the end of correction). I am in front of the place where the Light of Ein Sof exists and everything depends on me, everything and all of reality are in me, and there I discover the truth. But this truth depends on my own investment, on my loyalty to the group, to the teacher, and to the sources, and I need to reveal it in practice.

There is nothing but the center of the group. I discover that it must become the center of the whole world, the place where all the souls assemble, all the corruptions and all the corrections. This is Malchut of Ein Sof with everything it is going to collect and include in it. In other words, when a person devotes himself to Malchut of Ein Sof, Divinity, by wanting to be an inseparable part of it, he becomes Malchut of Ein Sof himself, and by that connects it with the first nine Sefirot, meaning with all the worlds until Ein Sof, and so we advance.
[78599]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/12, “Talk About the Workshop”