Spiritual Advancement

Question: Do we receive the forces that advance us through ourexertion, and then through them, rise above the ego?

Answer: It is through our exertion that we allow the Creator to affect us. It is only according to the measure of our correct efforts—and it’s even more correct to say attempts and not efforts—that through them we invite on ourselves the influence of the Creator. It is only by that.

Furthermore, the Creator is the field of bestowal. Just as there exists a field of gravity, a field of reception, there also exists a field of bestowal. It fills everything by itself and is permanent; its tension and intensity is identical in each point.

This means that the Creator relates to everyone, both small and great, in a completely identical way with love, with the attribute of bestowal. However, each one according to the measure of his efforts, yearnings, and exertions, invites upon himself greater impact from this field.

Question: Do the forces that throw us from the goal determine in which place and in which attribute we need to be located within this general system?

Answer: No one throws you. Besides that, this field is constant and permanent. It is revealed to us more and more in its increasing strength, its intensity, its illumination, its emanation, and its bestowal.

To the extent that its influence on us grows, we begin to feel worse and worse about ourselves since we exist in attributes that are opposite to it. The field affects even more a person who makes efforts and really becomes closer in similarity to the attribute of bestowal. He feels even worse with himself than do others.

Here the strength of the group is required in order to hold on and understand that it is the Creator who bestows on him in a special way, rejects him in a special way, so that in the end, he will attain the maximum desire through which he can be born, which means to come into initial contact with the field. At the time of the first contact with the field, it will, in any case, continue to operate and affect him. In any event, it will continue to reject him, but it already will be on the next level.

There, the rejections are of a different nature. They are more qualitative. It is not that the forces grow, but that the field operates in a wiser way, in a more meticulous way in order to invite and awaken in you a more qualitative development, the realization of this entire system, the same way as in school you go from grade to grade.

Question: Is the demand for the Creator like huge greed, hunger, or thirst?

Answer: The demand for the Creator is a necessity.

Question: The great need is not clear, for what?

Answer: No, that doesn’t exist: “It’s not clear why.” Gradually becoming closer to the Creator, you begin to understand what the attribute of bestowal is, and you begin to desire it. Otherwise, what do you need?

Advancement is progressive. It must be realized before you are born. You need to reach the point of your birth through two states:

• I am not able to do anything by myself;
• Only the Creator can help me attain the attribute of bestowal.

You must know, more or less, what you want: how much you want that world before you are born in it.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 3

Let’s Ask All Together!

An appeal to the Creator, a prayer, in our state can be only collective. Otherwise, the Creator does not hear. He hears only when people gather together and come to the same opinion as one man with one heart, one mind, because, thus they create a collective desire.

What do they want? Him to correct, raise, fulfill them, and so forth.

One person is worth nothing, means nothing: Such a prayer does not exist. You can scream as much as you want, but it will be the voice of one crying in the wilderness. If ten people get together, then, no matter how they shout, even falsely, their plea will taken into account because they are trying to connect with each other.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Workshop 3

How Do We Oblige The Creator To Help Us?

In the previous workshop we reached the conclusion that we cannot do anything by ourselves. We tried to do everything in our power, but it led to nothing. That’s true! It led to nothing! There is no hope that it will lead to something! Why? Because we actually have no powers. Those who say that we cannot do anything are actually stating a fact.

We are merely egoists, and we can only work within our ego. We cannot do anything outside the ego; it isn’t in our power. We cannot do anything above the ego; we cannot actually advance and get closer to someone else. We can only do that when we see some benefit in it.

What can we do? Ask the Creator! Nothing else can help us since it is the only force in the world that does anything. We were given the chance to discover this, to discover that He is the only force that operates and no one else.

So all our work comes down to a request to attain a desire that will really oblige Him to help us.

But it isn’t easy to reach such a desire. It grows gradually. We have to think about when it will grow so that we will shout; we have to ask for it each time. This request should include all our desires, including the smallest ones, no matter what they may be.

They are not real intentionally, just like kids who whine, cry, and weep and get what they want no matter what by using our love for them. We have to behave in the same way with the Creator, to learn from this world how we should behave.

All the requests, the demands, the begging, and the pleading are generally called “prayer.”

A prayer is also a feeling in the heart. In fact, it isn’t a request but a feeling in the heart when a person checks himself and no matter what he sees he wants to turn to the Creator with what is in his heart. No matter if it is good or bad, no matter what: Take it and do what You have to do with me!

There can be different payers: serious prayers and less serious ones, emphatic prayers, whatever; what is important is to pray. Everything is attained only by the power of a payer, the power of the request. The stronger it is, the more firm it is, the more insistent it is, the better.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Workshop 3

The Space Where All The Answers Lie

First of all, we need to determine exactly how we actually move on the spiritual path.

Trying to figure out where we are, where we should go, and how to find meaning in existence, we see that everything is closely connected, intertwined, and confused. Turning to human society, we see that everything is messy, unclear; everyone does what he wants, everyone has his own theory, his own philosophy of life. Overall, this is the mess in which we live. On the other hand, studying nature, we see that everything is logical, everything happens according to laws.

The question is why?

Because human society is not subject to the laws of nature. Our body obeys nature. In life, we also carry out the instructions of nature, but partially. And all that is human in us—not animal but namely human—we are absolutely on our own and do whatever we want.

How are we to organize this human in all of us? If humankind were capable of it, if it understood how to do it, then everything would be clear and correct.

Maybe too clear? Boring? Perhaps, in this case the illusion of freewill would disappear? Maybe we would have felt less flavor in the search, in life, in daring? Or not? Here is the problem that is hidden in humanity.

When I come to Kabbalah, when I finally try to use it to discover the meaning of life, when I, not only in theory but in practice, seek to understand the depth, the foundations of the world, to understand what drives it, how to participate in this and become as the whole world in my mind: perfect, eternal, infinite, then I find that I am confused.

This confusion happens because we need to constantly connect the two opposite ends of the universe: us who are at the bottom and just start asking questions and the most perfect, highest point: the Creator, that is, the fundamental force of this world that has created everything.

Between these two points there is a space that we know nothing about. If we find this link, if we fill it with the correct understanding of what is happening in this space, we will know everything.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Workshop 3

If You Want To Make The World A Better Place, Make Yourself A Better Person

Baal HaSulam, The Nation: The only hope is to establish a thoroughly new national education for ourselves, to discover and ignite once more the natural national love that have been dimmed within us. …

There is a precondition for any work and any act. Because in the beginning, the foundation must be built in a manner sufficiently healthy to carry the load it is meant to carry.

First and foremost we need education. In our time, it is of course in a broader sense: The Jewish people should be told what the human ego is and how it develops, how a nation is formed, and what it is since it isn’t about nationality but about belonging to the upper force. We have to explain what is happening in the world today, why we have reached the general crisis and how we should correct it.

Education is the precondition for any correction. If we already have an overall idea of the broad picture, then today we all must look at its basic strokes order to start the correction.

We have to show people that by correcting ourselves we rise to the level of resembling the Creator. The corruption is not somewhere on the outside, It is inside us. We should not fix something outside, but ourselves. The natural environment is not spoiled, not the economy, but we are the ones who are corrupt. After all, the external picture is an illusory projection of our internal attributes.

We need to bring people closer to this perception so that instead of correcting the world, they will start correcting themselves. Then they will finally be happy, individually and as a whole.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/21/12, Baal HaSulam, The Nation

There Are No Criminals In The King’s Castle, But Only Devoted Servants

Question: How can I tell that my prayer to the Creator is correct?

Answer: The right prayer is when you don’t ask for the obstacle to go away, but to see the goodness and usefulness in it. You have to rise above the disturbance and understand that it is leading us to ascent, progress, advancement toward the goal, and there are no accidental, irrelevant forces in it. “There are no criminals in the king’s castle” – everyone in this world are His devoted servants, whom He uses to lead you to correction.

If you ask for you attitude to what is happening to change and it doesn’t, that means your plea is still artificial and superficial, and is still egoistic inside. That is, you still haven’t completed this request to the full measure, which is necessary for the request to become valid and bring about your correction. There is still some dirt or egoistic benefit mixed up with it. Therefore, the Creator either replaces one obstacle after another in front of you, or He beats you with the same obstacles, and this can go on for years, until you finally understand.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/23/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

My Circles In The Spiritual Network

There are several circles that share the same center: Inside there is a small group in which I work, then there is the world group, and then all of humanity.

On the whole, the Light is everywhere in this whole volume. It doesn’t go away and doesn’t disappear. When we say that the Light is revealed, we refer to something that is similar to developing film. The Light is simply concealed from us in the deeper levels. Our yearning for unity summons and reveals the upper Light from the inside.

First I work in my group (1), since it is much closer to me. There is nothing we can do about it, that’s the way we are built: I feel people whom I can see, hear, and feel physically and with them I work more intensively.

Next there is the world group (2). We gather virtually in conventions trying to connect as strongly as possible. Thus we help since the upper Light created a system that is separated into several parts, into several levels. So my 100% effort in my group is like the 50% effort of the world group; it is as if we have made a 100% effort since the level of our concealment from one another is also taken into account: On this level we cannot cooperate more intensively.

Even if we feel other people who are living in other countries, in other continents, far away from us, if we try to connect with them, if we form mutual connections and hold conventions, etc., it is enough.

In the meantime, we cannot attain a connection in which the internal group and the external group are identical. It is impossible. It will only happen at the end of correction. Still, the constant efforts are enough to summon the upper Light. So we shouldn’t feel sorry that we forget the external groups, it is only natural.

Finally there is humanity, and if we only think about it a little and disseminate, create different forms of media, and operate through all the media channels, it will also be enough so that in these circles in the spreading waves, we will show the upper Light our efforts, our yearning for connection and unity, to the extent that it is possible in different areas.

We mustn’t forget all this under any circumstances. The Light is collective and it fills the whole space. We too have to incorporate this whole space inside us, on a different level, proportionately to how close it is to us.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 1

Head To Head With The Ego

Question: How is it possible to precede the acts of the Creator each time and to become more rigid in relation to the ego so as not to surrender to its treacherous schemes, and on the other hand, to be sensitive to the hints of the Creator?

Answer: Don’t think about the ego under any circumstances, not of how to surrender to it or the opposite. All of these games with the ego won’t help. It is more cunning than you and everyone else.

Egoism is a very strong nature that is completely opposed to the Creator and it equal to Him in its intensity. The entire egotistic system was created by the Light entering into the desire, which made its nature and all its attributes in all of its forms. Thus, the struggle against the ego won’t help at all! It is only rising above it and having the desire become similar to the Light that will help! But to face the ego head on is hopeless.

You don’t need to pay attention to it! Only yearn to move ahead! Don’t wait until it pushes us from behind.

Question: What should you do if you constantly think about this, and at the last moment forget about the ego and also about the Creator?

Answer: That is because there is no connection with the group and the environment doesn’t help you go forward.

Here there is a very simple system of forces. From the beginning you are given a point to lean on, you are given direction, pushes. It is said that the Creator puts your hand on good fate and tells you: “Choose this.” And then you choose.

Baal HaSulam writes, for this person it is constantly said to choose an environment for yourself that is stronger and stronger, one that will strengthen you, and in which you will not fall and not forget the goal.

The choice of a strong environment depends only on your investing in it. You don’t need to change people, you need to invest in them more, and then you will feel a greater influence from them. This is the point of choice of the new environment. It is not a matter of faces of people, but to what extent you can take from them that same upper energy that is in them, but they themselves don’t even know about it.

If it doesn’t succeed, then it’s a sign that you need to yearn to attain this. There is nothing to do. The work is only in that.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/16/12, Preliminary Lesson

Close Your Eyes And Stay Connected!

Question: After experiencing the tremendous closeness and unity with friends at the convention, how can we avoid sinking in the regular routine and remain in the same exalted intention towards the path and the friends?

Answer: You have to close your eyes and stay connected!

1. First of all, you must take part together in all the lessons, seminars and as many events as possible. You can’t manage without that.

2. Second, don’t trust your mind! I saw some very smart students, who have a good analytical approach, yet who are unable to analyze and research themselves, and that’s a problem. Even if they can place themselves under critical analysis, they still can’t analyze that criticism. Thus, they advance in the direction of reason rather than devotion and self-sacrifice. And without that a person immerses into impure, egoistic forces (Klipa) rather than bestowal and spiritual forces.

This is exactly what one should fear, of taking the path of reason instead of selfless devotion of the soul. We have already seen many friends who have fallen on this path, and many will fall. The goal will be reached only by those who are devoted to it with all of their soul and are willing to go forward with their eyes closed.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/21/12, Writings of Rabash

Don’t Be Ashamed To Play

The first spiritual degree is the most difficult. What labor a small child goes through to take his first steps. How much work it is for him to grasp something, to say the first word. How much internal effort nature makes him apply. Why? Why cannot we develop peacefully, freely?

Look how young children work non-stop, seven days a week. A child may have a high fever, and he still plays, still wants something. No disturbances, nothing stops him; he is so stubborn and persistent. And we need to follow his example. We must do the same thing to enter the upper world, to become grown-ups.

Well, after all this is known and understood, even if not fully, yet. The same child who already knows how to walk and talk, at the age of four, five, six years, starts a completely different process of acquiring knowledge, with more awareness. Here in the process of attaining the upper state, we obtain more conscious tools. We have already passed the first stage, already know how to connect, with whom to “play,” like a child who at the age of three acquires a sense of those around him and starts to understand a little that it is better to play with others than on his own.

Thus, we develop relationships with others: how we can interact with them, how it is possible to develop really wisely, mutually, by building our “games.”

That’s why we play around a lot. It seems to be nonsense, but in fact, they are very serious games. We do not want this, we feel ridiculous. After all, we are adults, serious people! What do we do? Is it worth spending time on?

In fact, yes, if we understand that the development of new properties at each stage of the process occurs in the same way as in children; in play, in workshops, in all kinds of joint actions, we have the opportunity to come closer to each other and thus to attract the upper Light to us.

Although our egoistic mind sees these actions as irrational, non-serious, and childish, in fact, they are the highest exercises because we want to go against our nature.

Then, having ascended to the first level, we get a substantial recharge of the mind, understanding of the initial scheme, like a small child who is already versed in our world and to some extent understands what is good and bad, how to move further, where to take toys and how to use them, how to develop, learning something new, etc. The child begins to understand how to use the adult world for his further advancement. Similarly, are we in relation to the upper world.

Thus, the important thing for us is to climb to the first degree. After that, everything will be clear to us, understood. After that, no one will run away from our groups and return to that life again because in this life he did not have the patience to discover the top layer.

We have to hurry to reach that level, so we can help everyone else. For this purpose, we received an awakening to the next level. Our task is to reveal it, to achieve it. To the extent that we strive to make this effort for the sake of everyone else, it will be a manifestation of our attraction to bestowal. Thus, we will receive an even greater portion of the upper Light.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 1 

The Method Leading To The Light

The first man who revealed it, who attained the wisdom of Kabbalah 5773 years ago, was called Adam. We will be celebrating his birthday soon. After all, the biblical new year is the birthday of Adam as a Kabbalist, the day when he revealed the upper world, the upper force. He wrote a book about it, “The Secret Angel.” We count from this first revelation of the upper world.

In fact, humanity is given 6,000 years to understand itself and its highest level (the status equal to the Light). Since the days of Adam, the discoverer of the upper world, 5773 years have passed. Thus, 227 years remain before the end of the process.

But this process can be realized sooner. Why? Because until now we have evolved under the influence of the driving upper force, almost without using our knowledge to rise to the level of the upper Light, to reveal It, and to ascend to the next degree, to the next dimension.

So, today, the unfolding global crisis, which has long been written about by Kabbalists, is precisely in order to give us all an impulse towards our combined, common, global development. And so now, we can apply the wisdom of Kabbalah, which teaches us how to attract the upper Light. The entire method is in this; there is nothing else.

We are in the egoistic desire to be fulfilled to reveal ourselves. As a result, our desire to be fulfilled will be filled with the upper Light. Kabbalah is a guide that explains how each state can attract the upper Light to itself in its maximum intensity and develop.

We have been studying this methodology for a while. First, there was a long “latent period” when we learned, created all sorts of teaching aids, books, and everything else. And now, the global crisis is beginning to flare up, that is when our global egoism shows us its ending, the inability to continue to exist in the previous paradigm; it will have to start to change because in its current state, it will drive itself to death, to terrible conditions. And we are already seeing this.

In the great mass of people, there is a need to do something with themselves. So here, as the carriers of the method of attracting the Light, we have to think not only about ourselves, but also about all of mankind. For this we were given such “inspiration,” such a desire as to become attracted to Him, to discover the meaning of life.

And the meaning of life is to rise to the level of the Light, the level of eternity, infinity, the level of perfection and harmony. We need to attain this level in practice, on ourselves, and also to teach it to the whole world.

We are interconnected. It is only in our sensations that the desire created by the Light was split into seven billion pieces. Each of us is a little bit of that desire, and his relation to the other today is repulsion, egoistic. To attract the Light is possible to the extent to which we try to unite today.

This condition is called the law of similarity, the law of similarity of the desire to the Light. As far as the desire, in spite of its egoism, will make an effort and strive for unity, so it will rise to the Light, becoming more and more like It.

It is impossible to become similar to the Light just by trying to unite because this unity is false, superficial. However, the attempts, the efforts, that we put in order to unite, attract the awakening of the higher Light on us. It affects us, and Its influence begins to correct our egoistic desire from “for its own sake” (from its egoistic force) to “for the sake of bestowal” (to unity with others).

That Light will realize connection between us and our unity will actually lead us to the similarity with the Light, and will create a network of relationships of bestowal, up to a relationships of love, that is, to mutual inclusion into each other.

When I feel the desires of others like my own, want to fulfill them through myself, and live to do this, then I get out of my egoism and exist in fulfilling others. This existence is called the higher, above our egoism. And thus, we find the connection between us in this huge system.

This system is revealed gradually. All that we learn with you in Kabbalah: the Sefirot,Partzufim, worlds, and all kinds of relationships between them are the relationships between us and this system. It all happens between us up to the extent that the system of our relationship becomes the world of Infinity, that is, a system of absolute interconnectedness, analog, integrated, and interdependent. And then in it, in accordance with this, the upper Light or the Creator is revealed in it without any interference, in its absolute form.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Lesson 1

Attaining Unity

The only thing influencing us is the Light. It gives us energy and, on one hand, it can be a “perpetual motion” engine for us, or on the other hand, it can move away from us, in which case we fall and become weaker, even to a state where our animate, biological existence ends. All of this is the Light. All occurrences taking place inside us, both positive and negative, are the Light’s influence.

Therefore, we can’t our talk our away out of anything with physiological or any other problems. Aim everything only at the Light. If it is closer, things will be good, and if it is farther away – things will be bad. And it’s that way with regard to absolutely everything. Everything taking place inside of us, like in a vessel, happens only due to the Light’s influence.

The Light is one; it is simply the will to bestow, the will to fulfill, the will to love. And the more we discern and analyze what “one” means and how to become similar to it, the faster we will reach the goal.

Fine, I remember that it’s the Light doing this to me, that it is placing various obstacles before me. And what next? Next, we have to analyze that unity: How we can acquire it when we unite together despite all of our “rough angles”?

I study how the Creator plays with me, giving me thoughts, desires, opportunities, and chance occurrences. And when I try to find Him behind all of this, I begin to see how He influences me. This is already an analysis of the soul rather than personality. After all, everything that relates to the Creator’s influence on me and my influence on Him forms my soul within me, bringing it to the surface. And vice versa, everything that is simply connected with others but does not include the Creator’s Light, relates to the body on the spiritually still or animate level.
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From the 2nd lesson at the Kharkov Convention, 8/17/12