When The World Shrinks To A Point

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Section 47:…“holy vegetative.” The nature of its Light is like the corporeal vegetative: There are distinct differences in motion in each of its elements….

The essential difference between the vegetative level and the animate level depends on the program. A person is spiritually born on the still level, and on the vegetative level, he absorbs the program of development and realizes it.

This is the qualitative addition of the vegetative level where we begin to absorb the process taking place in creation, the changes from state to state. So, we study the development of a basic cell, the developmental force, the development of signs and stimuli, and the need for development. This means everything relevant to development and to understanding it, we acquire this on the vegetative level.

The still level supplies me with only a source for nullification of the self. After that, I will want to nullify myself on a higher level and am now ready to accept all the acts of theCreator in this regard. Thus, I develop, “gain weight,” based on that point of nullification of the self on which the entire still level focuses to rise to the level of the vegetative.

At first, I completely finish correction of my 613 desires, thoughts, and intentions, on the still level. Then, an opportunity which I never could have dreamed of before is revealed to me. Suddenly, opened before me is a new world and all that fills it. I now can connect to all of my previous levels for the sake of this opportunity. I didn’t have a need for this up until now. Now, I see something higher that is connected to one point in contrast to all that was until now. Thus, I include the summary of the connection of the still level within the vegetative level.

Obviously, all this is taking place with the help of the Light that Reforms and with the help of concentration, the conclusion of the previous level and the ascent to the next level. Thanks to the Light, I already acquire readiness to nullify myself in every movement. In other words, every time I nullify myself, new forms are clothed in me that are, in sum, a movement. I nullify myself not in regard to the present state, rather through estimating and speculating about the next state. I already have some ability. So, all that the Creator will do, all will be for the good, and He will do precisely the opposite of my desire.

So, on the vegetative level, there is an addition of devotion to the program of development and not to the state itself.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/13, Writings of Rabash

Becoming The Ruler Of The Plan Of Creation

The group needs to convince each and every one that they are directed by the Creator and that there is nothing that appears by itself, i.e., that only He controls everything, “There is none else besides Him.” And thus I need to see the Creator in each one of the friends.

Together with that, I don’t nullify or show distaste to the friend by claiming that he is like a puppet that is controlled by a foreign hand. No! On the contrary, I compare and identify him with the Creator. Think about that!

When I said that someone is operated by the Creator, I can think that he is like a puppet on a string, and I can also say the opposite, “No, whoever is before me is a revelation of the Creator.” We learn in the system of the perception of reality that everything around us is a revelation of the Creator. When a person reaches such a state and works clearly in this manner, not just philosophizing, then he really enters the correct feeling of the reality.

We need to talk about the greatness of the Creator, but not philosophize and utter slogans. And it is possible also not to talk about it, but the importance of this force that holds all the creation and directs everything by becoming adhered to Divinity, needs to be with every one of us like the soul of the world. And everything that happens, happens as a result of the presence of this force.

Thus the greatness isn’t expressed through all kinds of cosmological activities, but by this being directed to each one of us so that we, through this picture, will attain Him, the plan of creation, and not by becoming parts but wise rulers of this plan. Unification means that we become Him.
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From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Two” 7/13/13, Lesson 4

Not For The Sake Of Success In This World

We invest great efforts in dissemination sincerely aching for success, but unfortunately, we cannot make bring connection with the upper force into this work. And most importantly, we can’t attract the Creator to our external actions to use Him to succeed in the external mission in our area or in the entire world, that is, to transfer our goal from Him outside.

On the contrary, the whole world and all the work must be a means of connection with the Creator! We seemingly use Him in the opposite direction, to succeed in this world. Whereas, the whole world is needed in order to achieve connection with the Creator. That needs to be changed in order to constantly specify the right direction, turning our intention from ourselves to the Creator.

This has to be in absolutely everything: I knock on the door, talk to someone, but inside I constantly have to keep in mind that by every word and every action I strengthen my relationship with the Creator. I bring these external desires to the Creator to approach Him, to Divinity, and thus, I build the basis for His revelation in the entire world.

This is a constant work until the end of correction. New vessels will be revealed for us every moment, new disturbances, egoistic desires that try to tear us away from the Creator. The Creator does this on purpose, wanting to strengthen our connection. This is a kind of “flirting:” He seems to distance Himself from us, to push us away so that we hold onto Him more strongly.

This is the work, all the 125 degrees. It is revealed in various forms that appear like pictures of this world. This world is the outer wrapping in which we must use every detail, every action, every scene of this play, in order to attach everything to the Creator and unite with Him.

Only the environment will help, which is described by Rabash. We are in this big and strong group. While on a trip, far from the central group, I see how the distance helps. On the one hand, physical distance makes a person further from the Creator and separates from Him, and at the same time, every moment gives the opportunity to return to the center of the group and draw more and more strength from there.

Therefore, only through our connection, where everyone tries to constantly keep in the same thought, will we succeed. You will later become convinced that the entire Torahspeaks only of how to neutralize the picture of this world in order to feel inside it the upper force to such an extent that we will begin to see Its actions: the way this force moves, controls, and manages all atoms, all people. We will see that they themselves are just obedient shadows, following that higher force. All these images are presented to us not to look at them—people or nature—but to reveal the force of nature through them.

Only the friends, only the group, in which everyone apply efforts, will be able to support us and return the correct intention to those who have lost it. We need to talk about this constantly and make this connection more and more clear, so that on the basis of this connection we reach out to the external public. Then you will see how strong you have become. It is most important for us to gain strength. Going to the streets for external dissemination is needed not to express ourselves to the people and integrate with them, but to bring them closer to us and to the Creator. That is, the trend should be opposite to our physical actions.

On the physical level, we go out to the public; we want to influence it and build a better life for everyone, for all of humanity, to use the crisis to unite. But at the same time, we need to see behind all these actions that their connection will be linked to us and through us to the upper force. That is, everything must pursue one goal: to return to Divinity all its parts that were lost in the breaking.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/9/13, Writings of Rabash 

Complementing Each Other’s Desires

In our world, words like “bestowal” and “love” are utterly overused. Gradually, they will trigger correct sensations, the right aspirations and essential feelings in us, but at first they confuse us.

In fact, love is an internal mutual fulfillment. It can be presented as elements of a puzzle that have opposite forms, but when they are put next to each other they complement one another and match.

In other words, the desires of one (shown as a red minus) are fulfilled with the actions of the other (a black plus), thus they enter each other and constitute a common picture.

We sense the distances between them (i.e. the states of deficiency, no filling) as affliction (a big minus). And only the appropriate content from the other can fill it.

Basically, we exist in nature already pre-matched to each other, but we differ only in our protrusions and hollows, and now we need to make them fit each other. That’s why “love thy neighbor as thyself” is about filling the desires of the other. For that, we have to realize and sense what exactly the other one wants.

How can we figure that out? If we work together in the same direction and study the materials on one methodology, we begin understanding what exactly each of us needs. Then, we don’t even need to realize what forms exist in the others; we just start aspiring to the same forms and the rest of the work is done by the Light that descends to us from above. That’s why we should take into consideration one more component— the Light that comes to us impacts us and in the end completes our connection. The spiritual methodology makes it feasible to match and complement possibilities of one with possibilities of one’s neighbor by eliciting the Surrounding Light.

This mutual complement is called love or reciprocal bestowal; it’s when one opens his heart and the other fills it. Our common desires are called the heart.

Generally speaking, in nature everything is complete. We don’t have to change the desire, nor should we alter our positive properties. In other words, we naturally possess an opportunity to bestow and chances to receive.

The only thing we need is to match them together in the correct manner, then the Surrounding Light will help us. After we connect, we start demonstrating a mutual quality of receiving and bestowal that in fact is the Creator. As it is said, we make the Creator out of ourselves and our intentions. Thus, we create a Kli, vessel, a place, a correct desire through which this quality will be revealed.
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From the St Petersburg Convention 7/12/13, Lesson 1

Unsuitable Time, Unsuitable Place

Question: Could you please tell us about your first encounter with theLight and your experience of exiting from yourself. Please tell us what clarifications and thoughts you had on this day.

Answer: It happened when I was driving to a lesson with my teacher. It was in the pouring raining, a solid sheet of rain. Half way there, my car stalled

It was two o’clock in the morning in a desolate place with no one around. Who would go out in this kind of weather? I stopped. There was nothing at all I could do. I got out of the car, opened the hood, but it made it even worse, the rain flooded the engine. As it turned out, my carburetor had cracked. Cursing myself and the entire world, I got back into the car and all of a sudden out of all this desperation I sensed the Creator.

Seriously! I am not kidding. It’s a true story. Of course, before and after that situation I experienced various sensations as all of you do. Why do I bring up this example? It’s because this kind of encounter usually happens at a totally unsuitable time and place and it looks like it’s not related to our internal condition.

We go through a process of accumulation that lasts for quite a long time depending on our inspiration, previous state, and numerous other conditions; then it transpires in us. As a rule, it happens without any external commotion. For that, we don’t have to meditate nor do we have to have any specific sensations.

When it’s supposed to happen, it will come. However, you should continue working systematically.

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From the St. Petersburg Convention 7.12.13, Lesson 1

Don’t Be Afraid To Knock On A Closed Door

Question: What should we do when we encounter a negative response and an outburst of hatred while disseminating?

Answer: While disseminating to the wide public we have to act as accepted in this world, which means to act as ordinary people do and to turn to the police or the courts in extreme cases. But in most cases, we don’t need to react.

We should understand that these situations were sent from above by the upper providence, but we need to respond to them in the usual way. Although we know it comes from the Creator and that there is none else besides Him, and that he arranges everything, our response should be according to the principle: “If there is no flour, there is no Torah, and if there is no Torah, there is no flour.” So we have to respond on the level of this world and also on the level of the upper world. This means that we have to strengthen the connection among us and by that we will surely neutralize all the hatred and the negative attitude towards us.

After all, we want to reveal the Creator in the connection between us so that He will dwell among us in order to bring Him contentment. Accordingly, He helps us by revealing greater and more numerous enemies to us each time. These are the uncorrected desires that have to be revealed to help us connect more tightly to the Creator.

So we have to accept all the negative responses with understanding. The group has to be prepared for that. At any given moment there are those who fall but there are also those who rise, and so the whole global group generally advances by mutual guarantee. Now we need to build stronger and more loyal relationships connections between all the groups and we will see how it will help everyone.

Analyze all the interruptions and revelations of hatred and decide what to do in each specific case. But the major correction is to remain silent as much as you can, and to connect as strongly as you can to the global group, to the Creator, as to a source of salvation.

Then we will see that all our enemies will suddenly become our fans. It is as if you knock on the door of strangers and at first they don’t want to open the door for you, don’t want to speak to you, and disrespect you. Then you see that you can improve your relations with them, and thus you learn how to relate to the whole world with the same patience.

We should see that the Creator is hiding behind every person, behind every closed door, playing with us. Relate to a person as to a representative of the Creator. The Creator wants you to show empathy now and to speak. If you come with the upper force inside you and see the person in front of you as the representative of the Creator, as help against, everything works out. This is how we will succeed all over the world.

This work is very important, since it forms us. As a result, we will be able to reach a wider public, more people in more countries. We have begun to work in Israel, and here it will be the most difficult because the Israeli nation is the most stubborn. If we learn to work with them, then later the method, the force of correction, will “pour from Israel unto all the other nations.” If we create the source of correction inside the Israeli nation, it will reach the world. We won’t even have to convince anyone; they will be drawn to it instinctively and will connect to us.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/07/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Igrot,” Letter 52

In Shackles

Our problem is that we are “in shackles,” captured in the network that links us, closes us and determines all our values.We just have to dress in a certain way, eat certain food, work as prescribed, behave as accepted, and to adhere to the standard way of thinking.

We do not have our own tastes, but we have those habits that society “spoon-feeds” us. It gives us our beliefs and our actions; it affects us now through its channels, some of which can be neither recognized nor traced. We cannot block them by any protective mechanism that blocks the thoughts and desires of a large environment.

As a result, a person does not know who he is at all. After all, he is placed in the system, programmed and filled with messages that originally have no relationship with it. There is nothing you can do about it; you cannot eliminate or remove them from yourself. Even the desire to escape from these clutches is also implanted in us by this system. It turns out that I have accumulated thoughts and desires that are not mine, and I myself do not exist at all.

Even though I am not free and am “made” by the environment, only the point in the heart, if it emerges in me, gives me the opportunity to build in myself something that doesn’t depend on anything and anyone, something caused by another world.

In my world, I am already “finished,” “prepared.” Here, I will never reach my own feelings, reason, and independent actions. They initially cannot be mine because everything that I have, I have received from another, from the world.

Yet, this “ape” is able to take a different form – the form of the human (Adam), similar (Domeh), to the Creator. If the point has emerged in my heart, I can develop it by my own efforts in a special environment, I can build a completely different world. I create a “bubble” in the middle of our world and develop freely in it if only I realize my freedom of will.

However, I also obey—but obey on my own accord, according to my own decisions—surrendering myself before my new, unique environment with its unique values. This is the only way. I do not own anything.

Accordingly, by accepting the influence of the external environment, I am in “exile.” Conversely, placing myself under the influence of the special environment, I strive to get out of exile and ultimately get rid of the influence of the external “landlord’s” egoistic society.

It is understood from this that the exile for the people of Israel means retreat under the influence of the external wide world and the assimilation of foreign customs, external values, substituting for love of the other as oneself. On the other hand, trying to get out of exile, we build the environment that will be imbued with the values of love and bestowal. This is possible by means of the wisdom of Kabbalah or by means of integral education. Either way, there is only one means: the environment that puts unity above all.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam