We Should Take The Initiative

Question: The wisdom of Kabbalah has used four languages throughout history: the language of the Bible, the language of Halacha(Jewish Law), the language of the Haggadah, and the language of Kabbalah. Can we say that the language of the integral education is the fifth new language that we use in order to communicate with the world?

Answer: No. It’s more like the language of Kabbalah, adapted for “babies.”  It’s because we speak to people about love, connection, submission, about the collective force of bestowal that is revealed in the connection between us. This force is revealed from a higher level and dwells among us just like wisdom for the masses. We explain the psychology of integral education using today’s terminology behind which there is no other but the wisdom of Kabbalah: the Sefirot, Partzufim, the worlds, ascents and descents, mutual connection, Reshimot (reminiscences), etc.

Question: If in the past it used to be enough for me to study the wisdom of Kabbalah and to connect with the friends and the group, do I also have to study this style of Kabbalistic language today?

Answer: Yes. It is the uniqueness of integral education. Similarly, we explain to children and adults the same things in different ways. The connection with the world goes through a different level of communication and we have to learn it.

It’s the Light that Reforms that corrects everyone. It doesn’t come to the masses if we don’t participate in the process. If the world starts connecting independently, it will speed up the pace of advancing along the path of suffering.

For example, if Europe begins to strengthen the union that it needs so badly today, it will lead to Nazi regimes, and local communes that abuse others. But if we work on the unity of Europe, then it will take on a spiritual form, according to the rule of “love thy friend as thyself.” Therefore, we mustn’t give the world time to start the egoistic connection. Only if we initiate the process of connection among them will it lead to a positive result.

Question: How can we do that?

Answer: By using the media, through our groups, and mainly through the general network that connects all of us “below the surface.” Through it, we will influence people and they will begin to understand that we have the right method of correction and no one else.

In fact, accepting integral education is the criterion that a person is ready to be corrected. This is the fulfillment of the wisdom of Kabbalah, as it says in the articles “Matan Torah”(The Giving of the Torah) and “The Arvut” (Mutual Guarantee). So our role is to become teachers, a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” with regards to the nations of the world. This is actually the field where we perform our external actions—”a field blessed by theCreator.”
[109551]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/03/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Fulfilling Your Destiny

Question: Will all the seven billion people who populate the earth have to reveal and feel the upper world?

Answer: All the seven billion live in our world, and all of them feel our world, albeit each in their own way. They will feel the upper world differently as well. The upper world is the perception of theCreator. This is why they will feel Him, this general force of correction, love, and interconnection.

One way or the other, the pyramid remains. It’s not up to a person. Everyone will feel totally satisfied and calm. It’s because the root of the soul, which arranges us one in relation to the other, is fixed.

This means that everyone gets to do something special, as it is said, “the sages discussed for seventy years who is luckier:  he who is not born lucky or he who is?” They came to the conclusion that it’s best not to be born at all, but if you were born, then you should fulfill your mission.
[109622]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 2/25/13

Love That Shatters The “Stony Heart”

Answer: You felt a certain unpleasantness by receiving in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) and you stopped and said to yourself that you don’t want to receive anymore. In the world of the shattering, the world of Nekudim, you were shattered since you couldn’t receive in order to bestow. We know from TES that the upper Partzufim made an intentional mistake in the calculations. But why were you shattered? It is because you discovered alove that you couldn’t receive in order to bestow, that you could not return!

The filling itself is not important, not the five servings that the host serves you. The five servings already appear in the world of Adam Kadmon, and it’s clear to you whether you can receive them or not. Everything is clear with regard to the servings, but now you discover that the host has a special attitude towards you, that He loves you! And you cannot stand this attitude and it shatters you.

Love shatters in the most severe manner, since you have nothing to return, there is nothing you can do. So a person that is dedicated to someone, like a wife to her husband, totally buys him. If she shows him that she is ready to do everything for him, he cannot reject her, it is unconditional love.

It’s impossible to resist such love that is revealed in the shattering of the vessels; the created being cannot pay for it, he has nothing to complete it by. So as a result of theshattering, we finally begin to search and we find out what we can give in return to the love of the upper.

As a result we understand what the “two great Lights” are: Malchut and Zeir Anpin, the created being and the Creator that become one: “I am for my beloved and my beloved is for me.”

Question: Can’t I pay for this love just by my dedication, appreciation, admiration, and the recognition of His greatness?

Answer: No, because you have no other parameter but your desire, you cannot measure love and you don’t know what love is. You know what love is only by your own vessel.

You think that expressing your love towards the Creator is repaying Him several kilograms of desire with a Masach (screen), but love is typical only of the Creator. If you measure and calculate this, then thanks to the connection between you, the Light of His love fills the two of you. This means that “you are covered by one blanket.” The Light of love comes from the Creator and wraps the two of you since you both reach adhesion; since mutual love is called adhesion, you have the common vessels that are filled by the common Light thanks to the common Masach.
[109548]
From the 3^rd part of Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/17/13, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Form Your Future Yourself!

Question: What can humanity, individual countries, or local companies do to simulate a more successful future?

Answer: In any case, the future will be successful. The problem is how to reach it. It’s better to do this in the kind, gentle, correct way. To do this, there are integral workshops and the method of integral education forming a successful future.

Our future is clearly defined. We cannot build it in a different way. We can only reveal it sooner so it will be friendly, gentle, kind, and quick  for us instead of reaching it the hard, long way, full of suffering.

Comment: It turns out that a person has a clear favorable line of development of events and his fate and if he uses the integral methodology correctly, then he immediately rises from one degree to another.

Answer: Yes. He anticipates in advance the events that must occur because being in connection with others and participating in integral workshops, he is ahead of these events, he forms and builds his future himself. Time will force him to do it.
[109303]
From KabTV’s “Through Time” 3/20/13

Loving The Other Not In Words, But In Deeds

Question: The commandment to love your neighbor as yourself is known around the world. Then, how is its original interpretation different from the conventional one?

Answer: It’s all about the difference between Abraham and Babylon. In Babylon, it was accepted to keep the uncorrected egoism and, at the same time, shout about love. On the other hand, the method of Abraham, that is, the property of mercy (Hassadim), is self-correction on the path to bestowal where the other becomes more important than yourself.

This can be achieved only through group work based on and constructed by Abraham. At the time, having gathered people, he began to teach them self-denial, self-nullification, and unity to the point of love for the other as for oneself. One must carry out this work precisely in the group where we build our environment on practice.

So, I do not see people engaged in this anywhere else. In recent generations, no one except Baal HaSulam, and Rabash in particular, wrote about the decisive need for unity and mutual guarantee.

Do various religions and beliefs, circles and organizations that preach love for the other facilitate the correction of egoism or do they just implant these or those collective attributes? For example, Nazi Germany also united people.

So, the question is the kind of unity we are talking about.

We have a methodology that enables a person to become united with others, to give himself to the environment in order to reveal mutual bestowal and love for the sake of all of humanity—not just some part of it that shields itself by fascist or protectionist methods—and ultimately, to achieve an absolute, abstract form of bestowal and love, in other words, to bring contentment to the Creator.

You can find a huge amount of material online about love for the other. Everyone talks about it, without mentioning Israel and Abraham, as if it is his personal invention or the property of his religion. When egoism covers the eyes, people do not understand the depth of the question, do not know the history, and claim that they know the ultimate truth. There is nothing you can do about it.

On our side, we already are based on the method of Abraham. He discovered love for the other as for oneself and, having exited Babylon, adopted this methodology. Then, Moses developed it by means of unity at Mount Sinai and so on. In general, we are talking about the task of the people of Israel, about its foundation. It was originally formed on this base. If there were no foundation, there would have been no nation.

All other nations came into being naturally, but Israel is “not a people” in this sense. It is not among other nations because its foundation is bestowal, love for the other as for oneself, separated from the reality of our world. Israel is the people connected to each other by the desire to find between themselves bestowal and love, and to rise in this love above their egoistic desire. There is no nation of Israel without this foundation. In other words, it cannot be called “a people” while it is in exile from the spiritual world.

The Jews in Egypt were not a nation until they came out of slavery and accepted the means that allowed them to live as one man with one heart, in common mutual guarantee. Only then did they become a people. Today, they are again not a people but a gathering of exiles.

It is no coincidence that throughout history Jews were so concerned about education. We also want to establish the method of integral education in our midst and then pass it to the entire nation and the entire world. There is only one reason: It does not exist without the nation.

The very concepts of “people,” “country,” and “society” among the Jews followed education. Before Abraham educated—taught those who escaped with him from Babylon—they were not a people. After all, it is necessary to have “glue” that will connect people into one; otherwise they are strangers to each other. It is the education on the principle of love for the other as for oneself that brings them together into a unified group or a unified nation. Of course, it is a unique people, different from all the others. They are united according to the conditions of our world, and in order to unite, Israel must accept the terms of the spiritual world.

This is the origin of its complete oppositeness to the rest of the world in terms of education and the essence of love for the other. If others are willing to distribute this principle to their nations, Israel cannot be limited to itself because this is not love as it should be. We must initially be aware of the goal of creation and carry it to the world. Otherwise, instead of love, there will be “people’s ego,” “national ego,” or, as it is called today, “national pride,” which is nonsense. Israel can have nothing like this. It must limit its ego and connect spiritual, higher values to it instead of boasting its differences in the matters of this world.
[109554]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/3/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Humanity Stands Before A Choice

Question: Generally, people who work in a small business and in particular in a medium-sized business are interested not only in monetary profit but in employment. This is the most talented and progressive part of humanity. They cannot find themselves within the framework of the larger companies and will naturally fill more unemployment lines. How can they find realization?

Answer: They have nowhere to flee. The world doesn’t require this number of workers. If we suppose that the meaning of the life of a person is only to be born, to grow, to profit for ourselves, to allow others to profit over us, and to die, so today in the world with its developed infrastructure and technology, there is no need for billions of people.

For young people over the age of twenty there is already just about no need for parents and especially for grandparents. They become disconnected from them very rapidly and feel themselves as completely free and independent.

If in the past people lived in communities with several generations together where a child respected his parents and was educated on the foundations of the family, people saw prospects in life, forward progress; however, today this doesn’t exist. From the start a person doesn’t receive this kind of education, and this stamps its seal on one’s feeling about the world and one’s relationship with it. It follows that in the world there is no continuity; everything is locked onto my “self.”

In a circumstance like this, people like these are never needed; rather, a half a billion people will be enough to work to supply the normal needs and existence. And so what will happen to all the rest? Will they be hung around the necks of these half billion? Which is to say, will it be necessary to eliminate six and a half billion people? Is this what we will consider doing?! Will nature allow us to act in a form like this? In principle, such a possibility exists.

On the other hand, if we understand that we are changing comprehension itself, the relationship of the person to life itself, to himself, to the world, and to creation, we will then relate completely differently to our physical existence. It’s imperative for us to rise to the next level, to perceive the meaning of life, the origin of life outside of the body, what exists virtually, spiritually, and meaningfully in all of creation, which created and developed us, and at the end of the matter will lead us through all evolutionary developments. We feel this, we are yearning for something.

In a circumstance like this, every person has his place in the world; each one is vitally important and understands the meaning of his existence. We are beginning to relate with respect in regard to everyone in that we understand that everyone has his niche in this system. In nature nothing is just created, especially humans. And therefore we need to think in a completely different way and make a new way of development possible for everyone.

The privilege of choice truly exists for humanity. It depends only on this: How much will those who understand the possibility of development in a good way be sufficient to disseminate their knowledge correctly and present it to all of humanity so that it will understand, recognize, and begin to realize this new key for a new relationship to the world.
[108909]
From KabTV’s “Through Time” 3/17/13

Krasnoyarsk Convention: A Possible Leap

Question: In one of the videos you said that the residents of Siberia are a special people possessing an extraordinary harmony between heart and mind. Is there really some kind of uniqueness in them?

Answer: Without a doubt. The idea is that beyond the Ural region live people who are completely different from those in the European part of Russia. These are people with a different mentality, with another approach to life, who are more open, more honest and sincere than in Western Europe. They have more consideration, a great possibility, and great ease in attaining spirituality.

Therefore I explain that at the convention that we are planning, we will speak together in a completely different form and will understand each other very well. The inhabitants of Siberia are themselves less complicated, closer to nature, easier in the contact between them. This is specifically what I felt when I visited Siberia, and in principle this is how it must be.

I hope that a meeting with people like these will be much more pleasant, much simpler and open. This will make a great leap possible for us, and it will indeed happen.
[109201]
From the Virtual Lesson, 6/2/13

You Don’t Buy Spirituality Nor Take It By Force

Rabash,” According to What is Explained Concerning: “Love Thy Friend as Thyself”: If everyone is nullified before his friend and mingles with him, they become one mass where all the little parts that want the love of others unite in a collective force that consists of many parts. And when one has great strength, he can execute the love of others.

And then he can achieve the love of God. But the condition is that each will annul before the other. However, when he is separated from his friend, he cannot receive the share he should receive from his friend.

Thus, everyone should say that he is nothing compared to his friend. It is like writing numbers: If you first write “1” and then “0,” it is ten times more. And when you write “00” it is a hundred times more. In other words, if his friend is number one, and the zero follows it, it is considered that one receives from his friend ten (10) times more. And if he says that he is double zero compared to his friend, he receives from his friend a hundred (100) times more.

However, if it is to the contrary, and he says that his friend is zero and he is one, then he is ten times less than his friend 0.1. And if he can say that he is one and he has two friends who are both zeros compared to him, then he is considered a hundred times less than them, meaning he is 0.01. Thus, his degree lessens according to the number of zeros he has from his friends.

If I want to receive something from someone in our world, I have to pay for it in return or to take it by force like the big takes from the small. In this case the bigger I am, the more I can extort the other and receive more from him. That’s the way it is in the corporeal world, when we speak about receiving in the desire to receive.

But if it’s about receiving spiritual powers, it works according to an opposite law. The more important I consider my friend and the greater I see the friend, the more I can receive from him.

I cannot receive anything from someone who is equal to me, since he is on the same level as me. But if he is even a little bit higher than me, I can already receive something from him, and the more I raise him the more I can receive.

It has nothing to do with the friend himself, but only with how I treat him with regard to me. It’s just like the students of Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma who had no idea how their teacher worked with regard to them. He saw himself as relatively smaller than his students and so he received spiritual powers through them.

Everything depends on how great your friend is in your eyes. The greater he is, the more I can receive the force of bestowal from him. But if it’s about receiving egoistic powers, then it’s about a different principle according to which the greater I am the more I can extort the other in order to fill my ego.

So the spiritual power you will receive from the environment is only up to you whether it’s 1000 or 0.001. We have to be in a group of ten that is working on connection and in which each one is somehow connected to the desire to bestow like the students of Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma. But this is enough since everything else depends on you and to the extent that you subdue yourself!

You will never have the power to advance if you don’t receive powers from the environment. So the rule of subduing yourself before the friends, even by physical actions is the most efficient means to advance. We mustn’t think that Kabbalists tell us about this only to establish good relations the way we teach kids in our world to behave morally since this approach is opposite from the wisdom of Kabbalah.

We do that only in order to receive the force of bestowal from the Light, from the Creator, through others. Since I subdue myself, the Light can flow into me through the friend. If I treat others as if they are really greater than me, I will receive the power of bestowal through them. It’s enough to treat them with the intention of in order to bestow and in the relations between us I will begin to feel the Creator and will be able to bring Him contentment. Through the bestowal upon the friends, I will be able to feel how I can reach bestowal upon the Creator. He will be revealed to me through the image of the group that I will see in the Light of my bestowal. Thus the rule “love thy friend as thyself” is the main goal of our work, which is a constant feeling of humility towards the friends, and accordingly we build up the powers of bestowal.
[108298]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/13, Writings of Rabash

Increasing The Sensitivity Of Our Spiritual Perception

Question: How can we acquire the integral approach with regard to the whole world to all of reality?

Answer: Imagine that you tell someone about your work place, about the place where you live, and about the world in general. You are not required to make any special efforts since it’s your life, and you feel that the world is yours. You “breathe” it and so you can wander around in this inner picture mentally and describe it in words.

We should also see the inner picture of the integral world in which we discern all the details and the connection between them. The same rules operate here too. There are states in which I can follow the general connection between certain phenomena, but the details of the mutual cooperation are still unclear since I have not yet entered this area. I see certain parts in general lines and they are relatively understood, but when it comes to individual parts, there are problems and I am not sure about what is going on.

This is the process in which I gradually penetrate more deeply and discover more subtleties. It’s as if I fly in a spaceship towards earth or check the scale of a map on the Internet until I “land” in a certain part.

But there are also exceptions: In our world we see bigger areas but fewer details, and when we get closer, we see more details but a smaller area. In spirituality, however, it’s not so, there both the characteristics of quantity and of quality of the picture of the world gradually increase. I encompass the whole system at the same time including its separate attributes; it’s because in this system every detail includes all the other details.

By this wonderful spiritual “patent” I see the general picture and each of its details as one, exactly the same.

Question: How can I become more integral? How can I increase the sensitivity of this perception in me?

Answer: Ask for it. There is no other means. No matter what you do, add a request to it that is as clear as possible and you will see how it works.
[109190]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/05/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Connection That Changes The World

Question: In what intention do we need to be to correct the world during the upcoming convention?

Answer: If we are connected with each other well and strongly, with the intention for our goal, in common mutual bestowal, this will definitely reach the world, and it will start to change.

The fact is that we are connected together through the same inner system. What we study in Kabbalah: Sefirot, Partzufim, the worlds—all this are connections between us. They are not somewhere in outer space: This is our real connection.

Revealing it in the groups of ten, we suddenly see that there are the circles of the worlds between us that connect us, how we influence these connections, and they affect us, and the Light is manifested between them—this is the manifestation of the Creator, His revelation.
[109312]
From the Virtual Lesson 6/2/13

On The Development Above Reason

We see already in the ordinary experience of this life that the human being does not change. All the qualities with which he is born remain in him for life, only slightly adjusted depending on his understanding of which ones of them are more useful and which ones are not. In essence, as he was born so he will live and die.

Nothing can change us, and society, too, does not set the goal of changing the human being, knowing that we do not have the means. The change is possible only if a person has special properties that are subject to change, and these properties are not from this world.

These are spiritual properties from which I have just small, informational genes. Besides that, I am given a means for the realization of these genes: the environment through which I can attract the Light to my spiritual genes, which will develop and realize them correctly.

Thus, I will get spiritual properties in addition to my physical body and its sense organs through which I feel myself, the environment, and the entire world, feel that I am alive and exist. Thus, from my spiritual genes, due to the Light that Reforms, I can give birth to my spiritual body and grow it to feel a spiritual environment and spiritual life in it.

This is another, additional upper reality in addition to this world in which I exist now, regardless of my wish. All this development proceeds only by faith above reason because my opinion will always be based on my egoistic interest, and my egoism will never consent to spiritual development.

It is possible only if I raise myself above reason, understanding that there is no choice and society should oblige me through studies and the teacher’s instructions. I finally begin listening to his advice—the Surrounding Light gradually gives me the ability to hear. That is why I already am willing to bow my head, to bend my ego, my corporeal impulses, and begin to work against them.

Then I will have justify to myself: Why do I do this? Mere beautiful talks will not help here. I must develop my desire that draws the Light to itself. That is why I completely depend on the environment that can give me an additional desire. As much as I can bow down and make myself little with respect to the environment—play a child who devotedly listens to adults, restrict and bend my pride—to that extent I will be able to get higher values from them. For their realization, I will need the Light that Reforms, and thereby I will be able advance.

All that work against one’s own natural, egoistic desire is called actions above reason. For the time being, these are corporeal actions in the group, and then I will begin to act in this way in spirituality.
[109007]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/2/13, Writings of Rabash

Such Restless Rest

Question: What can make the heart be more sensitive to the Lightthat Reforms?

Answer: Only the Light that Reforms can make a heart more sensitive. Nothing else operates on the heart or advances it toward correction. The heart is a desire that responds to the Light that influences it.

Even our most corporeal desires to sleep or eat are a result of the influence of the Light that excites the vessels. We are in a sea of Light that is in an infinite frequency of vibration. This is called “absolute rest” with regard to the Creator since all His actions are aimed only at correction and this goal never changes.

Everything is managed according to one plan and therefore, it is called absolute rest since it advances all of creation toward the good and is inclined to your maximum goodness all the time. Thus, we say that the Light is in a state of absolute rest, although it performs endless actions. It constantly fixes and corrects something, but for the Light, it is rest. If you love someone, every opportunity to do something good for your loved one is pure pleasure, and for you, a state of rest. The Creator can give us goodness all the time, and thus He is in a state of absolute rest.

Everything is done by the Light. The Light shakes you and wants you to respond all the time. When you begin to respond to it, you can expect to act together. You will be like a couple, like a horse and his rider, both feeling this internality. You must try to attain such sensitivity.

On our part, we must have a deficiency to resemble the upper, to adhere to Him, and to cooperate with Him. He will operate on you according to your deficiency. He will evoke the deficiency in you, will check your response, and will continue to evoke a new deficiency, and so on. It is up to you to find out how you, with the help of the environment, can develop your sensitivity to what is happening in you.
[109001]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/13, The Zohar

The Clash Of Two Civilizations

Question: In a peaceful society, a government of sages, great teachers, and saints is appreciated more. But in times of trouble, the first line goes to the revolutionaries and rebels who gradually become dictators. We are facing mass unemployment. Today it is already clear that revolutionary leaders are beginning to seize power easily. How will the new era that we will enter in the future replace these leaders, or will rebels and revolutionaries have to become educators?

Answer: Societies in which revolutionaries are prominent are least stable societies that have no clear direction. They exploit every idea that at the moment seems necessary for attaining power.

As a rule, they combine this with religion and do so in most fanatic and cruel form. This is because this is the most basic and prominent form that can be explained simply, adapted to certain needs, and presented to everyone. It doesn’t require any knowledge, quests, or inner freedoms, but on the contrary, only personal fanaticism and a range of vision contracted to a minimum: Who is with you and who is your enemy, and that’s all.

The problem is that thereby the two weak civilizations clash. Western civilization has weakened itself in that it has completely neglected its cultural heritage. In the 19th century it was totally different. Its main value was the development of science and culture. Now everything has deteriorated.

Now neither science nor culture is valued, except perhaps only in a form that interests the leaders according to their personal, mercantile considerations that help to strengthen their regime. In our day only money and power have value, and they have transformed into identical concepts. Wealth, once despised even by great scientists and people of culture, has become above all. Today all scientists and people of culture can be “bought.”

This characterizes today’s Western “decadence.” We clearly see that the bestial state of a person in this society is what is most important and comes closest to the Roman barbarism: “bread and circuses.”

The absolute lack of education of the masses is what has led to this state. Instead of attracting the masses to culture, to the scientific elite, which were valued in the 19th century, absolute degradation has taken place. What is amazing is that all this began with Germany, which in the past was the cultural and scientific center of Europe. It was precisely there that this transformation took place.

And now Western civilization is encountering and intermixing with the Eastern civilization that expands not thanks to science, art, and technology, but through the power of the masses, meaning multiplication and fanaticism, that is, pressure.

Thus we see that this is what is taking place in Europe and now in America as well. In the end, it will come to the point when the Asiatic-Arabic culture may “swallow” the world.
[108850]
From KabTV’s “Through Time” 3/17/13

From Faith To The Truth

We must yearn to actually see the friend as the greatest in our generation, to actually feel it “within reason” as if it were the truth and not as it seems to a person’s desire to receive. The desire to receive always wants to feel good and comfortable and so it instinctively diminishes everything around it so as to be “on top.” The most important thing for it is to rule.

So accepting the thought about the need to connect with the friends as a means for reaching connection with the Creator is only possible in “faith above reason” since we certainly don’t see things as they really are. It’s only according to this minor external condition—that a person yearns for the same goal and is ready to accept all the necessary conditions to advance towards it—that we begin to relate to the other as a friend as a means of connecting to the Creator.

According to these external signs, we decide to start working on our attitude towards that person. If he is ready to work together we dismiss all the other demands of our ego and we get closer to that person and connect with him in order to actually discover the connection between us, not only in “faith above reason.”

To the extent that we actually communicate, we approach the building of the spiritual vessel in which the Creator is revealed. The connection can be “‘above reason” when I don’t see that the friend is “worth it,” but I still connect to him. I use it as a means, which is called the time of preparation when I respect the friends not because I see that they are great. According to my senses I feel that I am greater than them, but I work above my senses and don’t agree with them and imagine that the friends are greater.

In order to transcend from a state of “faith above reason” to the state of “within reason,” which means to truly respect the friends, I have to correct the vessels, my perception. The correction of the vessels is when we begin to work on the connection between us, despite the fact that we know the opposite. We establish a society in which everyone impresses the others with the feeling of the greatness of the group and the goal.

By working together, we draw the Light that Reforms, and eventually we move from “faith above reason to “within reason,” and thus we continue to rise. The next levels are more difficult, of course. First the friends seemed quite average, having some good sides and some bad sides. When I had to work “above reason,” I could easily do it and accept them as equal, as partners along the spiritual path and even as the greatest in our generation. Their goal seemed important, and they seemed great.

But then came the hardening of the heart and I began to see different flaws in them, it became difficult to accept them as great and to see the Creator behind them, to warm myself by the fact that I don’t pay attention to anyone except the friends who become the most precious of all for me. Thus, each time becomes more difficult until I manage to overcome these interruptions and fill my measure.

Then all my efforts of working “above reason” turn to “within reason” and become the right vessel in which the first revelation of the attribute of bestowal takes place, which means that a person is filled with the feeling of the Creator inside him. Thus “faith above reason” is a gradual process, as we ascend from one level to the next, but when we build our vessel we have to yearn to have it within reason as much as we can.
[109091]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 06/03/13, Writings of Rabash

Getting To The Center Of The Universe As In The Eye Of A Needle

Rabash, “Come unto Pharaoh – 2”: For this reason, we mustn’t underestimate the importance of the work in love of friends, for by that he will learn how to exit self-love and enter the path of love of others. And when he completes the work of love of friends, he will be able to be rewarded with love of the Creator.

We should know that there is a virtue to love of friends: one cannot deceive himself and say that he loves the friends, if in fact he doesn’t love them. Here he can examine whether he truly has love of friends or not. But with love of the Creator, one cannot examine oneself as to whether his intention is the love of the Creator, meaning that he wants to bestow upon the Creator, or his desire is to receive in order to receive.

You need to train yourself to evaluate the success of your spiritual advancement by how much you think it depends on the relationship with the environment. The environment is not just a means of our advancement towards the Creator, but precisely inside it, within our unified homogenous connection with each other, completely as equals, we will find the Creator.

If our entire attention is directed at the center of unification, we begin to understand that this environment is Shechina, Malchut of the world of Atzilut, the central point of creation, in which our advancement, spiritual birth, and growth must be realized. The entire spiritual life is perceived only in the center of the group. And depending upon how powerful the unification is that we are able to achieve, both in quantity and quality, by this we measure our ascent on the spiritual ladder and correct the whole of reality from the point of our soul.

All the work is in preparation so with the help of the Reforming Light we bring ourselves to the feeling that we fully depend on and get life only from the point of our connection with each other, which is the center of the entire universe. This is the point that we discover as “the eye of the needle,” and the common force of bestowal and love that is the Creator is revealed in it.

We become the helpers, friends of the Shechina and the Shochen; the Creator is revealed. Everything is only there. The main thing is to understand that all the accidents and troubles are caused by a lack of correct connection between us and to concentrate all our responses and efforts on strengthening our connection in this central point. When a person binds himself to the environment in this way, this connection becomes more sensitive, energetic, and unconditional; he already begins to advance correctly towards the revelation of Shechina, becoming its inseparable part.
[109285]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/6/13