A Guarantee Of Equals

Question: After the morning lesson we begin a new day. How is it possible to use this day most effiectively? How is it possible to advance without delay and procrastination?

Answer: We need to think about the guarantee, about the conditions for the guarantee, so that this concept will be as close as possible to us.

In the one collective soul, each one is included in all. The mutual inclusion doesn’t indicate control, but rather equality. And the equality is in this, that each one nullifies himself in regard to the others. Only then are we equal.

Pay attention only to this and focus on this. With this we will win, not in any other form. All other victories will turn into a loss.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

If There Is No Goal, There Is No Joy In Life

Question: It is now absolutely clear to doctors that a human being is not only comprised of physiological systems of the body and mind, but also of the desire for a purpose. But we know that this is a person’s spiritual level. So he is compelled to build relationships between himself and the goal, his environment, and also to his body.

Recently, we are faced with the fact that people have been relating to their bodies negligently or even contemptuously, and consequently they are subject to disease. So how should one relate to the body?

Answer: As a result of thousands of years of development, a person has reached a state where he is not happy to be alive. Subconsciously we don’t want to live. Everything is in vain: the anguish, the suffering; life, what is it all? Do I need to feel that I am joyful, happy? But I don’t.

If I get some kind of satisfaction, it is attained through unjustified effort, and then it either passes very rapidly or at any moment it transforms into the opposite. So people truly don’t want to live. Therefore contempt for the body is only a small consequence of the current condition. A person secretly feels that he would be happier if he didn’t exist at all.

In the past there was nothing like this because we still had not evolved to this awareness. Today we have a conscious approach to life, the futility of our existence, the lack of fruitfulness, the degradation. We understand our nature, our nothingness. Nobody asked us if we wanted to be born, to be educated in this society, or in another society. We don’t understand what, where, or how.

There was a time when we had defined goals. We were still not that developed and so we went after whatever seemed permanent, building something, yearning for something. One yearned for capitalism, some for communism, and others yearned to explore space. We wanted to prove something, to struggle, and to attain some kind of self-affirmation. Today none of this exists; everything has simply disappeared and an “empty sink” remains where all the water has drained from. We no longer have anything to fulfill us.

Therefore we even look at our bodies with contempt. This explains the attraction to drugs, antidepressants, and suicide. Moreover, this is not only seen in developed countries, but everywhere, in Latin America, and even in Africa, in those places where people were sufficiently happy in the past despite their wretched existence. Today this no longer exists. There must be some kind of purpose for a person for one to engage in himself, his appearance, sports, etc.
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From Kab TV’s “Through Time” 10/20/13

When The Light Exposes Evil

Question: When will we really reach the level of “love thy friend as thyself”?

Answer: Right now. Who is stopping you? First man discovered this path; the other Kabbalists adapted it for us, and today we have everything that we need. Many have reached the level of “love thy friend as thyself” throughout history. All of Rabbi Shimon’s students were on this level.

Question: But according to their writings, there was burning hatred between them.

Answer: That’s true. In the same manner, the Israeli nation was in the state of “49 gates of impurity” before the exodus from Egypt. So how could it be that they could exit such a terrible state and enter redemption by one leap?

The whole point is that “He who is greater than his friend, his desire is greater than his friend’s.” If I try to reach the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) then my desire to receive becomes bigger and stronger on every level that I reach. The bestowal in me is faced with receiving, with the ego, the shell, the evil inclination each time. This is the reason that the Creator, the King of kings was revealed to the Israeli nation in the “49 gates of impurity.”

On the whole, the children of Israel advance along the middle line. The Light was felt in the shell as darkness and revealed the evil in them (1). To oppose it they asked for and received the Surrounding Light, which is the Light that Reforms, which means the Torah, the method of correction (2). As a result they reached the middle line (3).

This is the whole process: the recognition of evil in the left line, the request in the right line, and the transition to the middle line. Thus the evil grows each time and as a result, the goodness also grows, and then the middle line appears, which is the average of the two (S). So I promise you that the more you advance, the worse you will become. But this is negative side. The left line will be balanced each time by the positive side, the right line.

This is a great problem for a person and it requires great work. First he despairs and doesn’t know what to do; he gets tired of it and doesn’t see that it leads to anything. He cannot justify the advancement along the left line in any way and he doesn’t understand that these new attributes actually have to be revealed negatively. It is because a person corrects only what is in him…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/18/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

In The Endless Stream Of Light

Question: If I wish to become a partner with the Creator in the work, what do I need to do for Him to agree to it?

Answer: If you agree, it means you are already His partner. You don’t need to do anything else, the Creator always agrees.

However, you choose Him not because He is the most powerful, intelligent, profitable partner. You wish to be His true helper which means to walk the same path to the goal that He defined according to His rules. This means that you are already in bestowal(Hafetz Hesed).

If I come to the Creator and ask to be His partner, it means that I’ve risen above my entire ego and fully entered the state of bestowing in order to bestow. I left the desires of the corporeal world at the level of vital necessities and rose above them with my point in the heart. Next to it, there grew an entire mountain of hatred (Mount Sinai), my ego, and I have ascended it with my point in the heart.

Now, I stand at its summit as a perfect Bina, Hafetz Hesed, and having reached this point, I can tell the Creator that I wish to be His partner. I am ready. Now, give me a job! And He says, “You want a job? Here you go! We will take this entire mountain of hatred and start picking desires out of it and use them to bestow to the rest.”

To be the Creator’s partner means to yearn to be like Him. The Creator gives me the Light and says, “Use your ego to bestow the Light to the others, and you will be like Me, and I will raise your desire, expand it so that you will rise to My exalted position to bestow to all like I do. Then, you will be a partner in everything there is.”

Desires belong to the others, but the Light is mine. Hence, I must withdraw from my desires to please myself, engage in the desires of others, and use mine solely to fill theirs. A mother has her own desires and everything is available to her. She owns the entire world, but she uses it only in order to bestow to her child as his desire dictates.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/9/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Becoming The Creator’s Partner

Desire, Israel, (“straight to the Creator”) in a person gets reformed in stages, step by step since it must reach understanding and attainment according to its inner needs.

In this, it differs from types of desires regarded as “the nations of the world” that get reformed all at once in one set. Desire, Israel, demands that a person discern and attain the spiritual world, get to know it, immerse in its details, become the Creator’s partner, and not just join the system and receive all the good from it on a platter.

Israel wishes to connect with this system and work with it, receiving pleasure from knowing it. As it is written, “Know thy Creator and work for Him,” and there are such desires or people who don’t aspire to knowing the Creator, although it is written that, in the end, “for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them.” However, this is regular knowledge by a person simply residing in the spiritual world.

As in our world, not everyone wishes to be a scientist or researcher and enjoys learning about creation, understanding its causes and effects. There are two rungs of bestowal: to explore and get to know the Creator, or simply join the source of all good. Therefore, the souls that belong to Israel advance step by step, gradually. Naturally, they suffer while doing so since the entire attainment is founded on the previous unsatisfied need that must be cultivated.

Those who refer to the “nations of the world,” the lower rung, and who come in to take it for granted, as it seems, also must do a lot of work, but it doesn’t imply internal adhesion with the Creator as that of two partners.

Whether such a desire emerges in a person depends on the root of the soul. Heart, liver, and lungs—all the vital organs of the body—must maintain the connection with the brain that governs them in the first place, and all the rest of the flesh, comprising 90% of the body, doesn’t have such a direct connection with the brain and interacts with it through the supplementary systems.

This doesn’t mean that one desire is good and another bad, because at the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun), all souls will be absolutely equal. The difference lies only in the path to it. The strong desire is obliged to work on its path itself and uncover all the secrets of creation and the weaker ones, each in its own measure, simply attach to and support the former one. Essentially, everyone must reach the root of his soul, which signifies the end of correction.

In the spiritual world there is no inequality; this is another difference from the material world. Being in the spiritual world, a person acts based on his natural desires and cannot desire something that isn’t planted in the root of his soul.

Only in our corporeal world can I covet a neighbor’s luxurious car. However, in spirituality, I cannot desire what he does. I desire solely what is planted in my own informational genes, Reshimot.

I can gain inspiration and motivation from him but only in order to reform myself. Hence, there cannot be division into “big” and “small” there.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/9/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

From Animal To Man

When studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, we need to understand that we are on the animate level; as it is written: “All are like animals.” The still, vegetative, and animate levels exist in us. And the level of human level that we need to build within us is a degree of similarity to the Creator.

So far I do not know who the Creator is since I lack properties similar to Him through which I would be able to recognize Him and imagine who He is. This is why I am still considered to be on the animate level. After all, how do I differ from an animal? I am just slightly more egoistically developed. And the “human” level means “similar to the Creator” (“man” – “Adam” comes from the word “similar” – “Adameh”).

The Creator is the quality of bestow, the force of bestowal, while I am an absolute receiver. This is why I have nothing from Him except for a tiny “spark from above” that is enrooted in every man from birth. When it awakens, one begins to feel a strange uneasiness, a desire for something higher than the animate level.

And then I come to a group where people study Kabbalah and I begin to hear that there is a possibility to become human, like the Creator.

This is a very drastic change that we can make in ourselves. Imagine the difference between an animal and a human in our world. A man’s life is so much more difficult than the life of an animal, say a cat! In addition to the common animal needs like food, sleep, and sex, man also has desires for education, culture, and comprehensive development. The cat does not know any of these things.

But in order for us to develop something similar to the Creator, we need reason, sensations, and strengths that we do not have. After all, the difference between an animal and a human in our world is no more than a small difference in the development of two egoistic beings.

While the Creator and I are two opposite forms, and I do not have the slightest idea of what else I need in order to become like Him. I cannot even imagine what it is like to be like Him, to rise above time, movement, space, and our entire reality.

It turns out that we need to acquire certain strengths, understanding, reason, and experience that we do not yet have. So far I exist like an animal. But there is a “spark from above” in me and I can develop it so that I will suddenly discover all these different properties, reason, and sensations in it, which already belong to the level of the Creator to the level of man (Adam) in me. This spark is developed with the help of the Upper Light.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 8-10-10

Looking into the Faces of Kabbalists

Question: If Kabbalists experience an enormous spiritual pleasure from reading The Study of the Ten Sefirot, then why can’t we tell by looking at you that you feel this way? Why do you appear to be so calm?

Answer: And what do you want to see, what kind of Kabbalistic emotions, something external? It makes sense that we are used to seeing people’s emotions. But it is not the case when we are referring to true spiritual feelings.

The fact is that so far you are receiving impressions from the spiritual in the form of theSurrounding Light, in your egoistic Kelim, or a small highlight in the prepared clothing ofHassadim from above due to the screen of the Upper.

And for this reason you either do not feel or recognize this Light at all, or you feel it but as some corporeal pleasure, and this is why your feelings can be seen externally.

But spiritual pleasure from bestowal does not show on the outside in any way on the person receiving it! This is because he receives this entire enormous pleasure inside the clothing created by the opposite force. And they lock one another; the Direct Light clothes in the reverse Light and the desire, which is restricted. And this is why externally it goes completely unnoticed.

And a regular person does not perceive the spiritual world for the same exact reason…
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/6/10, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

The Unexpected Discovery

Question: Do we need to tell people at the lectures on integral education that they are uncorrected elements of nature and that all the problems in life are brought about by them? Wouldn’t this depress people?

Answer: This will not happen in two cases: First, if people come to this conclusion themselves in the course of a workshop as a result of the proper pre-designed questions asked in the correct sequence, this will become their personal discovery. It will turn out that you are not proving something to them, but they themselves draw definite conclusions, give you your methodology themselves. They “give birth” to it every time.

Second, if you speak from the perspective of a doctor, telling the patient about his illness and making him understand that there is a cure, then, it will become a pleasant discovery for him because he will understand at once that by getting rid of the disease, he will rise to a completely different level of health.

You can tell people that they are uncorrected elements of nature only in these two instances.

In general, we never start with this. I believe that a person should not be told anything unpleasant—or even pleasant—because he must discover everything himself. Then, it will be his attainment, his feeling. After all, it is not someone else’s thought that whizzed past his ear and disappeared in the air, but his own that he has found within himself. He will own it and will not part with it.
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From Kab TV’s “Through Time” 10/20/13

Stand Firmly “On One Leg”

We are not familiar with our own nature and therefore we err all the time in one direction or another in our self-evaluation, blaming or justifying ourselves unjustly. We must understand that we have no possibility of seeing the truth and the only way out is to rely on the Light that Reforms.

Our self-image, our characteristics that now seem to us beautiful or not, all this is still far from a true understanding ourselves that will be discovered in the Light of the Creatorwhen we see our true nature. Only then can we decide what is bad and what is good in us, for even pride is not a useless characteristic.

As it is written, “And his heart was uplifted in the ways of the Lord…” (II Chronicles 17:6), which is to say, we need to be proud, to overcome difficulties, to stand firmly on the way of truth, and not allow anyone to divert us from the way or humiliate us. In this case, humility is not appropriate.

In our view of ourselves and about others, there is much confusion; therefore, the only solution is attracting the Light that Reforms. As it is written, only “…in Your light we will see light” (Psalms 36:10), and, until then, it is necessary only to perform the advice of the Kabbalists precisely in order to advance as much as possible toward true observation of all of our nature and ourselves.

Hillel explained the correct approach, “anything you hate, do not do to others ” (that is what Hillel answered to that convert who asked him to teach him the entire Torah while “standing on one leg”). In the meantime, this is the only examination that we are prepared to make.

If you stand with them on this one foundation, “on one leg,” then this is enough. Even though your condition is very unsure and shaky when you are standing on one leg, if you hold to this one foundation and nothing more—by maintaining this foundation all the time, “anything you hate, do not do to others”—then you can move forward.

We don’t need anything else; this one thing is enough. This is a necessary and sufficient condition. Nothing else is required except connection and we need to work only by means of this all the time. The nature of the action is examined according only to how much the connection between us will be stronger. We don’t take into account anything that is happening around us at all. This already would be a “second leg,” a “third,” which can bring us only great confusion in the work. Therefore, you only should be concerned about your connection.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/13