The Lifeline To Shore

Advancement is only possible through the gap between the inner Light and the Surrounding Light. The inner Light symbolizes the present and the Surrounding Light symbolizes the future. The more we can elevate the future in regard to the present, the stronger the force that pulls us forward, our yearning for the future will be greater. And according to the force of this absence, we attract the Light which penetrates the present state from the future.

For in the spiritual world all states already exist; everything only depends on our yearning to attain the future. If we want it, we feel it as good. But if we don’t yearn for the future, then its Light comes to us according to the developmental program “in its time,” and this causes us to suffer.

Everything depends on the manner by which we increase our yearning for the future and awaken ourselves towards it. This must become our main concern. For this, we need to describe it to ourselves, to draw its picture in front of us, and to play in it as if we already live in this future. We need to behave like children who play at being adults awakening excitement about this within them, helping themselves to grow.

A person can’t grow through trouble and suffering. Suffering, on the contrary, obliges him to gather into himself, to go into a corner, to hide in some shelter. In contrast, happiness opens the heart to grace, to mercy, to bestowal, to love and carries one forward, as if on wings.

Therefore if we describe a good and beautiful future to ourselves, we cause the whole group to be elevated by this, giving all the friends a feeling of hope, confidence and joy about the prospects for the future, from its greatness, the greatness of the Creator, theteacher, the learning, and the group; this will give everyone energy and desire, and will expand their perception. Thanks to this, we attract even more influence from the Surrounding Light to our expanded desires, receive even more power and illumination, and are drawn forward.

So through constantly turning toward the future and receiving illumination from there, a person advances himself. It’s as if I had a rope and were pulling myself upward with its help. Or as if I am sitting in a boat and with a rope, I throw the rope to someone on the shore, and then use the rope to pull myself toward the shore.

In this way, a person works with the Surrounding Light, awakening in himself a yearning for the future, praising the Creator and the future state and thereby gathering deficiencies for himself. With the deficiency that develops, he again thinks about the future and together with this learns that through this he attracts the Surrounding Light from the future. This works on his external vessels that are meant for the future. For they are not internal vessels yet; they have not yet attained correction and fulfillment.

In this way a person arouses his future desire; this attracts him to it so that he advances. He receives that awakening from the future, that fulfillment and power intermittently. With the help of the environment and the study, he creates a connection with the future, with the Surrounding Light that influences his desires that are not yet corrected, and finally he attains the goal.
[104903]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/13

The Human In Harmony With The Integration Of Nature

Question: During the integral workshops, people feel new sensations, especially those who are used to clarifying and analyzing processes. They begin to ask, where does this come from, what is this phenomenon, and so forth. How can we explain the sensations they are feeling to them?

Answer: These are sensations of the one collective integral nature, which really exists. We are found within it, but are, meanwhile, only a cancerous part that eats itself. As we rise above our ego, we begin to feel the integrality, the unification, and the mutual dependence. We feel how prolific and good this is, and how much this can influence health, our emotions, and our mutual relationships in the family, at work, everywhere!

We, humans, have become a unique creation in nature. Whereas all the rest of nature—the still, the vegetative, and the animate—are linked in an integrated scheme and participate naturally, instinctively, involuntarily; we were given free choice.

We cannot be like the others. We develop with an ego, in order to transform it, rise above it, and enter into integral understanding and feeling by cooperating with it independently and even to control it.

Simultaneously, we don’t enter into conflict with nature. On the one hand, we say a human is the crown of the creation of nature, and therefore we must obey it. On the other hand, the human can rise above his nature. He can be the master of nature and feel himself as its crown.

This is to say that all the questions that humanity has faced and must answer have arrived for we have risen to a level of integral connection that is to be found in balance with the whole of nature. We begin to feel this balance within us as serenity, relaxation, the expansion of consciousness, the expansion of emotion.
[104887]
From a Talk on Integral Education 4/2/13

The Group: The Addition Of Hue And Volume

Writings of Rabash, “What to Look For in the Assembly of Friends”: It makes no difference if the friend is slandering him and must certainly hate him. Instead, a person who wishes to acquire love of others, that person needs the correction of loving the other.

Therefore, when a person makes the effort and judges him to a scale of merit, it is aSegula [remedy/power/virtue], where by the toil that a person makes, which is called “an awakening from below,” he is given strength from above to be able to love all the friends without exception.

Question: In our reality we always need to cooperate, to help each other. Say, if I want to buy a car from someone, that person needs to agree to this. But here it turns out that if a friend hates me, I don’t need his participation, his work—I can nevertheless reach love of the other if I myself want it….

Answer: That is all correct since my shattered vessel is entirely in the hands of the Creator. In our world we close the deal between us. But if I want to change myself regarding the Creator, then I am having my business with Him and not the world. So for me the world is an indicator, a criterion, of the situation and nothing beyond that. I depend on the Creator who gives me a particular picture by allowing me to understand and feel that the world changes if I change myself and that everything depends on the “observer.” Therefore, it’s up to me to turn to the Creator: He helps me by pouring a bit more of the upper Light, and then I change.

It may be that I ask for something from the friends, but only if I understand that they are also under the control of the Creator. In this case, when I turn to them, I am also turning to Him.

After all, turning directly to the Creator is still an abstraction to me, which I cannot hold on to, even though when working with the friends I need to hold Him within, inside my heart, as well. On the other hand, within the group I am overwhelmed with thoughts, desires, and emotions. Here I pass through an infinite chain of states; I feel anger, hatred, jealousy, craving, honor, control, and ecstasy…. Relative to this diversity, the relationship with the Creator seems pointless, pale, and colorless, and still evokes no sensations.

It’s logical that thanks to the group I acquire the possibility of working on the corporeal level of this world, that I have a multitude of sensations and hues of perception, which assemble into different forms and images. The “physical world” is just a concept, while essentially, we are talking about the same spiritual forces, it’s just that here they acquire volume and intensity in my eyes, being arranged on the scale from the monstrous to the beautiful.

All of it influences me instead of the direct spiritual influence, and for this reason I am able to work with the friends mutually, understanding that these are actually the Creator’s powers. Kabbalists teach us to see Him behind each friend and also behind the entire world. As a result of the cooperation I calibrate and correct myself, turning for help. There is someone whom I love and someone else whom I hate, someone whom I see this way or another. Why? Is this because it’s good for my ego? Or that by changing my relationship to the friends I can bestow to them and through them to the Creator, since truly there is none else besides Him.

Therefore here, in the framework of this picture, I have the possibility of utilizing myself correctly—so as to be in the process of correction all the time. While doing so, I correct myself, and for the others I can only provide explanations as a teacher or recommendations as a friend, no more than this. Our main work is self-correction.
[104791]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/7/13, Writings of Rabash

The Same Method But A Different Approach

Question: The method of the integral education is one of the ways to convey the wisdom of Kabbalah. However, most people who study the wisdom of Kabbalah don’t understand how it is related to the wisdom. For them the two exist separately: the inner work and the method of the integral education.

Answer: But don’t we engage in the method of the integral education between us? After all, in order to reveal the upper world we fulfill it on ourselves, we hold workshops,conventions, friends’ meetings, we hug and dance together, study the articles of Rabashabout the society and about the work in the group.

We do the same thing, but for us there is an additional part that unifies our connection, the general connection to the system that is called the “Ten Sefirot” or a “soul.” There is a certain hierarchy in this system of the forces that influence us. How can we activate them? By connection.

Ordinary people will simply fulfill the integral method, and while they do that they will correct themselves and all of nature not knowing how it works.

We (like a brain) also have to understand the principle of the connection and to actively participate in this system, trying to organize one network among us, to minimize ourselves, to accept the group as higher than we are, to support one another and to be inmutual guarantee.

We fulfill everything that Rabash says in his articles in the relations between us, but beyond that we also study how this structure is created among us.

Suppose we are ten people sitting here, and there are “Ten Sefirot,” the connection among us. We study how they begin to work among us and how we work on them mutually, how to act exactly, what is going on right now, how to rise from the “circles,”Zeir Anpin, Aba and Ima, Arich Anpin, Atzilut, etc. that spread from us into the actual center, to the state of whole connection.

They are all in the network between us and we study about all of them when we studyTES. There is nothing but these “Ten Sefirot.” Even now we feel them, on a minimal level that is called “our world.” The moment we begin to connect we will begin to feel the upper state of the connection and there in the connection between us the force that determines and that sustains everything is revealed—the Creator.

So I don’t see any difference between the spiritual method and the method of the integral education. We are simply like computer experts for example: We know the software and understand what its mechanical parts are.

When you call your mother, for example, you press the cell phone button and your mom receives the call and tells you something in response. After all, you don’t know what is happening inside: Everything is coded in pulses and the pulses are transferred to another place where you mom deciphers them (although she is not aware of them herself).

So we, the experts who know this whole system, know how to get people used to it, how to teach them to use this instrument as all of humanity. After all, 99% of the people don’t know anything; they live automatically.

In order to rise to a good normal level of life today we need to start raising all the 99% of humanity. This is what we have to do. So like experts we study everything thoroughly and then bring people to courses and explain to them how to use this instrument, which means this world, so that the changes in it will take place in a good way.

So there is no difference between the wisdom of Kabbalah and integral education except for those who aspire to attaining the system and who actively participate in it and reach the wisdom of Kabbalah. Those who will follow them will use it simply through workshops. They will gradually understand as things will be explained to them to what extent it influences them for the better and also the whole world, their families, their profits, the prices in the stores, etc. They will use it like all the other people.

An ordinary person earns money and then buys food and then rests at home in order to go out again to earn his living, to buy food and to rest… It is the same here, he doesn’t know the mechanism of the system, he knows the limited angle that we have to present to him.
[104646]
From the Virtual Lesson 4/7/13

Two: One Opposite The Other

Baal HaSulam, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part One, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Item 12: Now you can see how Ohr Ein Sof departed from His Atzmut, in which we cannot utter any word, and became defined by the name Ohr Ein Sof. It is because of this above discernment, that in that Ohr there is the will to receive incorporated in it from His Atzmut.

The Light is “something from nothing.” The desire to receive was created in this Light. The desire that gradually is filled by the Light begins to feel the Light and is impressed by it. Although the Light is first and started the whole process and is the one who bestows, we speak about the developing desire and about how it changes under the influence of the Light. Time and time again, it feels the Light in different forms, and, on the whole, it is about how the Light is revealed in the desire. The two are incorporated in all the states they go through. Eventually, all of creation—all of reality, everything that we can even speak about—is only there in the connection between them. There is nothing other than these two elements.

This means that there is nothing to be confused about. We always should take into account a simple formation: a Light and a desire. The Light constantly operates on the desire in order to bestow upon it, and the desire develops gradually by going through different phases.

There are no regressions and no leaps on this path, only a sequence of states that are created within the desire by the constant influence of the Light that is good and benevolent. As a result, the desire develops toward an increasingly greater filling, and must feel and go through different phases, thus revealing the one who bestows.

The stages of this process are called degrees, worlds, Sefirot, and Partzufim, and they relate to the general development of the desire by the Light. Eventually, the desire begins to feel itself. It feels who fills it, who is taking care of it, and how it can respond to that.

This process is inevitable of course. The desire cannot determine how it will develop exactly and in what order, but at a certain point it can determine how to respond to this developmental process; how to receive the different manner of its development with love, which he first feels as pleasant, then as not so pleasant, and later as even terrible; and to identify with the Light.

Then, the desire leaves its own boundaries, transcends its nature initially created by the Light at the first point of existence, and reaches the opposite point. Instead of being a desire, it is as if it totally becomes the Light, acquiring from the Light all the intensity of its bestowal.

So, the two are opposite one another, and the Light constantly develops the desire. Later, at a certain point, the desire can determine its relationship with the Light by itself. This whole process is compulsory, but the desire can change its attitude to what is happening, to the force that operates inside it.
[104832]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/13, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

The Unique Work Of The Spiritual Adaptor

In spirituality a human being is the part that coordinates between the Creator and the created beings. He is also called “Israel,” which means straight to the Creator (Yashar-El). It says: “You are calledAdam (human) and not the nations of the world.” After all, the Masach(screen) that I provide for all of humanity is the real “me,” the human being in me. I take the Aviut (thickness) from the “nations of the world,” the Light from the Creator, and I have to build a Masach in relation to them.

The goal of every upper Partzuf is actually an “adaptor,” a “connector,” the transition that has nothing of its own except the adaptation to the needs of others. This is my work, my designation. Whoever has a point in the heart has to do that, this is what we study.

Question: What do we overcome by that?

Answer: We have to overcome the interruptions that prevent us from helping the world and by that to bring the Creator contentment. According to the fable, He actually wanted to give the Torah, which means the method of correction, to the “nations of the world,” and the Israeli nation received it only as a point of transition, as an adaptor and a connector. The nations of the world have the vessels, the Lights are above, and the Israeli nation, those with the points in the heart, have to adapt between them. So it turns out that we are the upper Partzuf, the adaptor, or in other words, a Masach and Returning Light.

We only need to exert ourselves and nothing more than that. Our desire is small in comparison to the desire of the nations of the world, and so it is written, “You are few among the nations.” We are few not quantitatively but with respect to the desire to receive, since our Aviut belongs to the level of Bina and we acquired all the additions after the shattering. Our only designation is to serve Malchut, which means the desires of the nations of the world, and to build the Third Temple from them. We will have to fill all the desires and the spiritual passions that will be revealed in them.

So it is written: “Wisdom in the nations of the world—believe, Torah in the nations of the world—don’t believe.” Their vessels have to receive the Light of Hochma, and the Torah is the method of correction that exists only among the nation of Israel that is designated to evoke the Light that Reforms, to correct themselves, to calculate things regarding theMasach, and to bring the nations of the world the Light of Hochma. We establish the connection and the system and the nations of the world provide the desires.

Question: This mission doesn’t seem very difficult. We only have to pass on something to the nations of the world like messengers; what’s so hard about the work of this “adaptor?”

Answer: First, on the level of the forefathers we broke off from the vessels of AHP, that is, we left Babylon after having corrected our vessels that belong to GE. Then on the level of the sons we corrected our AHP by the exiles, especially the exile in Egypt, and have acquired a whole vessel, but its two parts are ours since they belong to the level ofBina and that is not enough. So after the Exodus from Egypt, the conquering of the Land of Israel, and the building of the Temple, our whole vessel was shattered and fell to the level of the nations of the world, to the fourth and last exile.

Now we have to start correcting things, but not the correction that was before. Then we didn’t go through the shattering, and today we have to take our “vessels” out of the “nations of the world.” This is already a great deal of work. In addition to that, the representatives of the nations of the world also join us.

First we have to reconstruct ourselves as the one vessel we used to be and then we begin to work with the “nations of the world,” as the connection already exists since the days of the exile. So even though we start our self correction now, it is passed on to them, and, thus, we don’t just reconstruct ourselves but also include everyone in the correction and rise to much higher levels.

When Israel rises again, the nations of the world immediately follow them and then they have whom to ask for, for the real AHP and not for the “undeveloped” AHP of Bina.

So the role of “Israel” is to take the deficiency of the “nations of the world” and with it, rise to the Creator and prepare the vessel of the Shechina (Divinity) for it. It’s built of the different desires of the nations of the world, no matter how ready they are. The main thing is that they feel that the filling from above goes through us. Then they are able to adhere to us and to receive it.

Thus we bring the Creator contentment. Since it’s to them that He promised to give the Torah, to the real vessels of receiving, and we are only the means for the correction of these vessels.

So it’s clear how important it is to disseminate all over the world. The “Torah” is a general, inseparable system that is revealed everywhere. It turns out that we are connected in a network and cannot break away and escape from it. This network, the connection between people, is the “Torah.” It exists on all the levels all the way to the absolute connection when everyone become “as one man in one heart.” The Torah is the general vessel and the general Light in it is called “The Creator.” Today we must correct the desire to receive in order to connect above it in mutual bestowal upon the Creator.
[104827]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/13, The Zohar

The Unsolved Mystery Of Life

The wisdom of Kabbalah considers the entire creation to be like a will to receive divided into four levels: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking.

Essentially, this is talking about the vital force that acts within them. On the basic level of the still, it only constitutes the compulsory need to maintain its structure. So everything begins from a simple polarity, from “plus” and “minus,” from an electron and a proton, to which are gathered other particles, forming a complete “galaxy” within the atom.

Then the atoms build all kinds of forms of inanimate matter: gases, liquids, solids, plasma. And on the next level they connect into molecules, and at a particular moment life is formed within matter.

We don’t understand how this happens. Because up until now the particles were connected with each other “mechanically,” then suddenly something new appears among them.

What is life? Is it simply the “leaping” of electrons? No. Basically, in what way is animate organic matter different from the inanimate matter of the still? Science doesn’t know this. But we see the vital force, metabolism, reproduction, all kinds of mutual connections, forming memory, forming reactions that produce the connections and the uniqueness of all kinds of different cells. The origin of all this evolution remains a mystery to us. Nobody has succeeded in creating the vegetative or animate level from the still level.

But in fact, this is talking about the vital force, the desire that acts within matter. It is derived from the spiritual interaction of Lights and vessels; this is the reason why its appearance cannot be explained in physical terms. We discover and investigate all kinds of phenomena but not the force that forms them.

In this manner, the will to receive is the basic force of creation and we can only witness its existence. It is worthwhile to accept this as a fact, to be able to discover and perceive all the rest later. For in sum we are creatures who perceive ourselves in some kind of reality, at a particular moment in our development. Certainly we ask questions, but in order to find answers about them, it is necessary to go either to the beginning of creation or to its end.

A person is a small and limited part of the immense creation, and if he wants to investigate it, he must first grow to its dimensions, to the required height. Only then will he be able to grasp, absorb, and investigate it through analysis and synthesis.

In general, life is Light. But we discover this within a desire that is born within our comprehension of the phenomena of the levels of the still, vegetative, animate, and human. In fact, it is singular, even though on the “screen” of our consciousness we see all kinds of images that are sketched by the Light; even though they compel us to experience all kinds of emotions, all this takes place within us and not in reality. In reality only desire and the Light that animates it exist, to a greater or lesser degree. If to a greater degree, then one is happy, and if to a smaller degree, then one cries. And that is how we develop…
[104680]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/10/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar” 

Grow To Be Human

Our will to receive is divided into four levels: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. They are very different in their ability to analyze. At the bottom of the still level, a person still doesn’t understand what he is doing. After that, when he rises to higher planes of this level, he already understands, feels, and agrees that all of his work needs to be built upon nullification of the self. So, he tries somehow to perceive that the Creator is acting within him and to identify with Him with heart and soul.

This is not a simple level if we are speaking about a person who yearns to realize this state. Even though I have not yet reached a feeling, understanding, and perception of spirituality, still I want it. I want to feel how the Creator activates and controls me in every cell, in every desire, in every thought. I want to feel myself “clothed” in Him, and, of course, not to feel any resistance to this, only full agreement to this “servitude.”

This is what we attain in the “embryonic” state, and from here development continues.

On the other hand, on the level of the vegetative, I already actively reach the feeling of identification with the Creator. I go through a period of lack of desire, opposition, and dependence on time, movement, and location, the kind of fulfillment. I must bring myself to agreement, and this agreement is always against my nature. Thus, I build myself so that in the end I will be able to be human, and along the way I pass through the appropriate, small, immature stages.

The speaking level is completely different from the previous levels. Here, I am ready by myself to increase my desire through the others, not as before when I only acted personally. I was by myself within my nature and only developed this more and more. Now, I begin to grow beyond those levels that I received from nature. At all times, I have the possibilities of receiving, acquiring desires and deficiencies from the outside, and transforming them from an egoistic intention to an altruistic intention. This is the human level.

Therefore, we don’t see this level in our world because it is different than the previous animate level and is not found within the body. My body leads a beastly existence, but, if I work and acquire social desires from the environment and fulfill them through bestowal, then, thanks to them, I grow and thus become like the Creator. This ability to attract the deficiencies of the other, in fact, makes it possible for me to transform them into bestowal in the spiritual world, and in the physical world, we exchange our petty desires, which only bring problems, destruction, and crisis.
[104758]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

A Human Being Is What’s Inside

Question: There are several levels of desire in a person. How do you sort them out?

Answer: Generally speaking, we measure things according to the Lights that enter the vessels when I overcome my ego. After all, I don’t want to be in contact with others at all. I don’t even want to see them, but I overcome myself and receive, “buy” the other’s desire, just like the upper does with the lower in order to draw MAN upon them (a request for correction) and to receive MAD (a response to this request) and to pass it on to them. Thus I develop, by playing the role of the upper for others.

Question: And how does that happen? In our world a cow doesn’t become a human being and leaves don’t grow out of rocks…

Answer: Imagine a person’s life: He graduates from school and goes to university, becomes an engineer, and then a scientist, and finally has everyone’s recognition. If we look at his body, however, the opposite happens, since he becomes exhausted with time: Once he had lots of hair and now he is bald; once he was potent and healthy and now he is ill.

We don’t see what was added on the human level since he has received that from others. In our world, it’s impossible to see that since here we are all the same in our physical form, and the human being in us is our inner level.

In order to rise to it you have to connect to others, to the friends, against your will, in resistance. In order to do that, I have to rise above my ego and to start acting for the benefit of others. Then I begin to feel the other and can receive his desires. Thus we establish the connection of the upper and the lower, and I can develop and pass him the Light, fulfillment.
[104755]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”