Without Externality There Is No Internality

Question: If we are dealing with inner, spiritual development, then why are the external activities, such as participating in lessons andconventions so important?

Answer: Everything begins with the still level. Until I go through the first three levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature, I will not reach the speaking level and to the level of the Creator.

And accordingly, it’s impossible to stop halfway or to cancel something if it’s “needless.” Thus, I get up out of bed in the morning, brush my teeth, wash my face, and come to the lesson…. And during all of that I must be strictly and punctually correct, without wavering.

But no, “today I am in a philosophic mood. I am sitting at home by myself and thinking about life. I don’t want to be under the influence of the group. I don’t want to be together with the friends. On the contrary, I need a break, to get away from them. After all, a person is an independent creature and doesn’t depend on anyone. So, I won’t be dependent on the group and won’t do what the others do. I need to be higher than them.”

The conclusions are seemingly correct and logical but they are wrong at the root. It isn’t just written, “I dwell among my people.” Growth is possible only within the group, within the many, being mutually integrated with each other without any conditions. The Creator brings me to the group and says: “Take.” And afterwards it’s my choice if I take this present from Him. Or do I refuse it with pride? All the levels are constructed one above the other, without cancelling the previous one, but by adding to it a new attribute.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

The Most Important Book For Humanity

The World Zohar Convention 2014 is dedicated to the most important and unequaled book that was given to humanity from Above through a unique group of Kabbalists. All of reality is a result of the breaking of desires. And in our world this breaking was manifested by way of the destruction of the First and Second Temples.

The ten Kabbalists who created The Book of Zohar were the remaining survivors of the destruction. On the one hand, they still belonged to the great times and high spiritual levels of the people of Israel at the time of the Temple, meaning at the spiritual state. But on the other hand, they had already emerged from the breaking and reached a unique revelation among them thanks to absolutely unique work.

Never in history had there been an event like this, that a group of ten people gathered and attained such a strong connection, rising to the height of 125 levels of correction of the breaking that existed between them. And therefore by way of their external connection, meaning by way of the book, they managed to convey the levels through which they had passed: from hatred to love, and after that from even greater hatred to even greater love, and so on further and further.

It is said, “Whoever is greater than his friend has greater egoism.” And therefore the higher we rise, the more distant and opposite we feel in relation to each other, the more hateful. That is how our nature, the evil inclination, is revealed to us.

A regular person doesn’t have an evil inclination, he simply has desires. Whereas the evil inclination is revealed in people who want to connect with each other and at that time, according to their aspiration, pressure, and efforts to connect, they discover how incapable of this they are.  They discover that the ego is awakened in them all the time and pushes them away from each other.

In The Book of Zohar it is written that the very same students of Rabbi Shimon, who each had attained an extraordinary height, the upper part (GAR) of the world of Atzilut, before the lesson, at the first attempt to connect, felt unbearable hatred towards each other. They expressed all of this inner struggle and antagonisms in The Book of Zohar. They felt how the fire of hatred burned in them, something which specifically indicates a very high level of the recognition of the evil inclination and its corresponding correction into the good inclination.
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From the World Zohar Convention 2/5/14, Lesson 1 

Integral Mediators

Integral Education Convention, Workshop 2: The group provides us the means that allow us to constantly yearn for the right feeling that my whole life, my thoughts and feelings, all stem from the Creator and that it is arranged that way so that through the connection, we will turn to Him.

Generally speaking the world is divided into two parts:

• People who have received an awakening from Above, from the Creator, in order to advance to Him. The Creator brings these people to a group, “places a person’s hand on the good fate and tells him, ‘Take it.’” Then it’s up to a person whether to choose it or not, which means to be incorporated in the group, to become part of the general current against his ego or not. This is our choice.
• The rest of humanity lives individually, each person on his own for the time being, in a random, Brownian motion. The ego develops in humanity, of course, but gradually, and not in a group flow.

People who flow together with the group are required to strengthen and to build it consciously. The main thing is to understand that the moment they become part of one of our groups or of the general group, they have nothing private or individual anymore. Everything that happens to them is only a result of being in a common movement with us. Now everything that they receive is through the center of the group and it doesn’t matter if it’s consciously or not. Then it spreads to everyone and each one receives according to the efforts that he has to make in the common flow towards connection, towards the center.

It is the same when it comes to our movement towards the Creator. Everything that we want to focus on Him, to tell Him, to ask from Him, to summon His bestowal upon us, the influence of the Surrounding Light, and so on, can also come only through the center of the group. This means that the center of the group is very important for us, like a point from which we can ascend in our appeal to the Creator and through it, like though an umbilical cord, we receive everything and give everything.

Let’s imagine our spiritual umbilical cord through which we receive and give everything. Only through this cord are we connected to the source of life. Imagine that you are an embryo in a womb, and that through this cord, through the center of the group, we receive our life, all the spiritual force, everything there is.

When we find the connection to the umbilical cord, we begin to realize the way that it’s all built, and how everything actually descends to us from the upper Providence. Our world is merely the world of outcomes, and therefore nothing is ever born in it. We begin to realize how we can affect the upper Providence and to evoke the best ascent.

Thus we reach a conscious development because we find the connection with our source, and start to connect between us, to draw everything from Him and to respond to it correctly. Although “there is none else but Him,” the Creator is eventually a simple passive source. Everything that happens is only through our bestowal, according to our request.

So how can we bestow upon the source through this umbilical cord? Through the center of the group, of course, otherwise there would be no contact with it. We discover it in order to ascend above all our deficiencies, and connect in order to receive the answer from Above, feeling the cooperation between us and the Creator through the pipe, through the line. We study about the line in Kabbalah and it goes like a pipe from the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) all the way to our world.

We serve as an upper level for the public and we have to use this pipe so that people will be nourished by us and will gradually be drawn upwards. It seems that we feel the point of contact with the Light, with the Creator, with the upper level, but for some reason we don’t really rush to find it and to use it in order to start passing the positive energy from the top down towards us and the negative energy from the bottom up.

The crisis that develops around us is in order to help us with it. Eventually, if we don’t wake up in time, it will also reach us not only spiritually, but also in the ordinary corporeal sense. After all, the crisis is meant only to awaken us to a quick connection with the immense force, with the abundance, with the upper Light that includes everything, in order to convey it through us to the world on the outside.

If we don’t do it in time, the world will not treat us very nicely. It refers specifically to us and to the wisdom of Kabbalah since we are the ones who have to perform the correction. If we did everything in time, we wouldn’t see a crisis at all and we wouldn’t feel anything negative. We would be taking constant preventive steps.

But we are lagging behind. At the moment we lag behind a little. I hope that it’s enough, and that later we will begin to understand the responsibility that we have towards the world and will understand that the crisis is a lack of the upper force that has to be conveyed to the world through us.

So how can we organize ourselves as quickly as possible in order to come in contact with the Creator, with the external world, and to be the conductors of the upper Light, of the abundance? After all, this is the solution to every aspect of the crisis. We have to feel that we are the conductors that connect between the upper world and the lower world; this is what we have to do.

It says: “The upper shall learn from the lower.” We have to better understand how we should turn to the Creator, based on our integral dissemination and our integral education in turning to the public. It’s just as we finally begin to appreciate the way our parents treated us when we become parents. When we begin to tie the deficiencies that are evoked in the public with the global integral solution, with the spiritual ascent that the Creator expects us to make, it’s as if we include the two ends:

• On the one hand, the masses with their apparently simple daily needs.
• On the other hand, the upper value that the Creator places before us, connection and the attainment of the one system that includes everything in which He is revealed as the reviving force.

This is how we develop on the whole, thanks to the fact that we are between the hammer and the anvil. On the one hand there is the public, the masses, and on the other hand the Creator. We have to balance the Creator’s actions which spur us on to connect that descend from the top and are fulfilled in the masses in the form of troubles and simple human needs, and we raise the problems and the simple troubles through us to a higher level of connection with the Creator, above time and space, above everything that is already in us, to the spiritual space.

This is our uniqueness, as we begin to connect the two worlds in us and to tie them to us. This is the special quality of the group that can perform this work, to connect, to include and to tie the two opposite worlds inside it. Being an integral part, we include all of humanity and we lower the Creator into it from Above. Thus we attain the feeling that is between the two opposite systems of creation. This is our uniqueness and our ultimate fulfillment.

The created being’s ultimate goal is actually fulfilled inside the group, which means in the connection of humanity, starting from the center, from us, and spreading to wider circles. We are already pulling those who are behind us, inviting them to join us, without pulling them to our level but simply acting according to the level of their desire and understanding the crisis as an aspiration for connection.

We feel that the current crisis is spiritual, while they feel it on the corporeal level. Yet, on the whole, the solution is one and it is to reach an equivalence of form with the Creator and to know how to be in contact with Him so that He and we will connect according to the condition of the equivalence of form. This is the method.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day One 2/02/14, Workshop 2

It Is Forbidden To Walk In Place

One should not dwell in the previous stage, but should immediately enter into the next level and accustom oneself to such a change of states. If we stop in a particular state, this is not good. All changes are for the good; the main thing is that there should be changes.

It is written, (Isaiah 2:3) “For out of Zion shall go forth the law,” meaning departing from the previous state, even the best. This is even if it’s a fall from a higher state, from joy to sorrow. This is not important, only that there should be as many changes as possible because they determine the rate of advancement.

We always advance, stepping with the left foot or with the right foot; that is how movement is made. Therefore the main thing is not to stand on one leg in the same spot, rather to move all the time: from the left line to the right, or from the right to the left. The main thing is to go out of the previous state and enter into a new level of connection.

The ascents and descents happen all the time. They say that the Seer of Lublin said to his student who was complaining about the constant ascents and descents that he passed through 400 ascents and descents in the morning. It’s not necessary to think that he counted them, he simply knew the number of levels that he had risen: that is, the level where he had been before and the level to which he had risen. And that is how he knew that they were 400. Additionally, 400 is a number that symbolizes completion.

The more internal changes happen within a person, the better. And it’s not necessary to analyze them as to whether they are good or bad. There are no bad changes! Baal HaSulam writes: “I am happy about the wickedness that is revealed”; you see, if they are revealed this says that it’s possible to correct them. Even though it’s bad for me, I am happy that I can correct this evil. Therefore it’s good that you are going through many ascents and descents.

And in addition, this helps the friends. Everyone goes through many inner changes, and through integration we convey these ascents and descents to one another. So it follows that everyone wins and advances quickly.
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From a Preparatory Lesson for the Arava Convention 1/30/14

Special Language Of The Torah

The Torah, Exodus, “Tetzaveh,” 29:43-29:46: There I will arrange meetings with the children of Israel, and it will be sanctified by My glory. I will sanctify the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and I will sanctify Aaron and his sons to serve Me [as Kohanim]. I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel and I will be their God. They will know that I, the Lord, am their God, Who brought them out of the land of Egypt in order that I may dwell in their midst; I am the Lord, their God. In the presence of the Upper force (the Creator), the Light dresses in a corrected Kli, vessel, then modified desires “saturate” the entire universe with the higher Light of spirituality.

Question: In general, everything that is written in the Torah can be understood as follows: “Act as written, and the Lord will appear in you as an imprint.” Is that right?

Answer: If you regard what’s written in the Torah literally, you’ll see extremely harsh and bloody pictures. It’s really hard to understand how everybody can consider these images sacred and worship them if all they describe is a very primitive life of “savages” who lived several thousand years ago.

Even today we see people killing each other and regarding murders as some sort of “sacrifice.” This is a huge dissonance with the greatness of bestowal and love! These images are simply not sublime or spiritual!

I am not astonished by the content of the Torah (after all, people who wrote it understood what it was about). Rather, I am amazed people today continue perceiving these pictures as “sanctity” or “special deeds” that the Creator commands us to follow.

How can something written in the Torah not encourage us to at least clarify the essence of the words of the Torah? It contradicts our intellect, life…everything! And yet, people live “happily” and consider it a Holy Scriptures.

How is it sacred? If we realize that it’s about bestowal, love, the connection among us, and correction of our egoism, then it is sanctity. If we perceive everything literally, let’s say, burning a bull, then what is sacred about it?!

It is in total dissonance with what is happening in materiality and spirituality, and thus has to raise multiple questions. And yet, we don’t ask these questions. It looks as if humanity is in a state of deep hypnosis.

Even today all world religions preserve certain ancient pagan rituals to which people attribute higher properties. Because of their ignorance and lack of understanding, they are like small children playing games laid before them, and their collective participation and collective ignorance support each other.

For those who wrote the Torah, these “scenarios” were just symbols, a specific language that described the process of human correction. People had a clear vision of what it described. That’s why we should always keep in mind that “loving our neighbors” is the general essence of the Torah. It’s the main thought that permeates it.

There are no other actions whatsoever! If we burn a bull or build a Temple nothing will change! All we can expect is appearance of new religions that will feud with each other and use “sacred” slogans to kill one another, thus acting directly opposite to the Torah that teaches us to “love our neighbors.”

I feel sorry for humanity when I read the Torah portions. People are unable to correctly understand and accept them. I hope that in the nearest future this situation will change and people will understand that only spiritual actions that lead to self-correction are the content of the Torah.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/28/13

A Place That Has Been Blessed By The Creator

Rabash, “What is the Advantage in the Work that is more than the Reward”: And the main preparation that is called exertion, that one has to annul himself, which means his self-ness…which means that he annuls the opinion of the landlords and yearns for the opinion of the Torah…as the sages said “the Torah exists only in those who kill themselves for it,” which means in self annulment, and there is no self domination here but the domination of the Creator. Then the Creator can say “every place that I shall mention.” Why can I mention My name? Since a person has annulled the domination of this place for the Creator, then “I shall come and bless you” can be fulfilled…which is the reception of theShechina.”

We already know this formula. A place is the desire to receive and also the Creator who fills this place, which means who fills the desire. We regard the vessel as a place and also call the Light, which fills it, a place. Everything depends on the phase to which we refer, whether it’s the desire or the one who created it and fills it.

It says, “Every place that I shall mention My name,” where the vessel is arranged according to the Creator’s name, HaVaYaH, with all its discernments, “I shall come and bless you.” The Light will come and correct the vessel, and will clear the right place for the Creator to be dressed.

It’s important to constantly measure to what extent we get closer or draw further away from the Light so that “there shall not be a strange god among you.” To what extent the concept of the Creator, the upper force, all the images that are depicted in our imagination, become the attribute of bestowal that is dressed in me. I can measure my state according to the attribute that is received and according to my attraction to it.

Of course, there are also opposite states like for and against, but it’s between these two directions, from these two inclinations that we advance. We have to check to what extent the concept of the Creator, which means the attribute of bestowal that is dressed in us, is more desirable each time and to what extent we hope for it, expect it, and are attracted to it. Until “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one” in the same place.

Now we perform exercises, trying to annul ourselves and to reach connection only between us, for the time being. As is says “from the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator.” But if we also remember that we do it so that we will become one vessel in which we will be able to reveal the Creator one day, the upper Light influences us and connects and organizes us. Thus we will gradually feel the place that we are preparing for the revelation of the Creator, and will check whether it’s ready for the Upper Light, for the attribute of bestowal to be dressed in.

Then we will begin to identify movements in that place, and whether we are receiving the Creator or not, whether He enters us or whether He exits us. We will understand how we can draw Him closer or drive Him away from us if we want to ascend to a higher level in order to be more adapted to Him. After all, we have to draw away from Him between the levels.

When all these actions become familiar and are under our control, we gradually reach a greater equivalence of form with the Creator and He is gradually revealed to us. Thus we establish the place, and the connection between us begins. After the connection, a distance is created, which teaches us to return to connection despite the distance. Thus we learn to control these processes as much as we can and to monitor them.

This is only possible with God’s help, of course, with the help of the upper force. We mustn’t forget that He is the one who organizes and who manages everything, but with our active participation. We decide that we want to reach “make your desire His desire,” and thus establish the place.

We are already in the process of establishing the place, although we don’t really understand how to do it, which phases we go through, and what else we have to do. Actually, nothing is clear. It isn’t a formula with one unknown, but rather a formula with many unknowns that we have to solve. It’s an integral system in which everything is incorporated in everything and depends on everything.

But when this picture clears up, we see that it includes many details that are interconnected into one system, although in the meantime it’s very foggy and unclear. It’s impossible to hold on to this with our coarse, egoistic, primitive hands.

But by working in this world, we gradually begin to raise its components to the spiritual level and to insert into every attribute, every force, every event, into everything that happens, the Creator’s spirit, our spiritual yearning. Then we begin to see another picture behind the picture of this world. Behind this picture we discover a system of forces of the upper world. This is how we establish the place for the revelation of the Creator.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/14

Integral Education Of The Masses

We are chosen in the sense that we have received from Above the desire calling us to learn, yearning for connection with theCreator and the revelation of the Creator, which must occur before all of mankind.

It is already approaching the need for the next state; nature moves all of humanity forward. But people do not have and will not have their own desire. Thousands or a few millions will join us, but it is a tiny fraction of the whole of humanity. There will be no more.

The head is always so: it is small, like the microprocessor in a computer, but it defines and decides everything. The remaining parts realize this micro part.

So, we are this “chip.” We have to connect to the rest of humanity, begin to work with people, understand them, unite with them, find an appropriate vocabulary, create an appropriate dictionary, various images, examples, and develop suitable workshops, etc.

We teach small children all that grownups have, only at a low level in simple examples, simple actions. In order for people to feel their next desirable level in their connection, we have to encourage them, constantly attracting them with something.

We ourselves experience descents and ascents, and in accordance with this, we need to strengthen ourselves.

Others do not go through this. They constantly have to be attracted, embraced, warmed up, and served. We need to explain the method to them to the extent that they need to understand it in order to be connected to us and to rise with us. We take them as young children on the road, make them sit and drive them. The child is next to you, or even on your lap, or running nearby under your supervision because he does not know the way and does not even have to know it. You should not demand anything from people, except one thing: “If you are with us, everything will be fine.”

This should be our way out to the masses. Without it, we cannot advance upward after the creation of our collective Kli. We will reach the minimal level but no further. Indeed, we have received an awakening in order to “pull” humanity with us. We have to treat it very seriously. We will be able to ascend only depending on our success with a wide audience. If we do not succeed, it will serve as ballast to us, not letting us ascend.
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The Reverse Side Of Unrestricted Competition

Opinion (Jag Bhalla, entrepreneur and writer): “’Competition creates efficiency,’ is preached as if it were a law of nature. But nature itself teaches a different lesson. Biological competition can create foolish costs, and collective doom. ‘Darwin’s Wedge’ shows why and reminds us of the point of being human. Our competitions, and the myopic logic of free markets, needn’t be dumb as trees.

“Robert Frank coined ‘Darwin’s Wedge’ to describe situations where individual incentives diverge from collective goals (sometimes even risking collective doom). Darwin’s Wedge applies to an entire class of problems wherein supposedly locally rational decisions aggregate badly (see the market fallacy of composition). These include the tragedy of the commons, Prisoner’s Dilemma games, and Nash equilibria. In them using myopic self-maximizing logic ends badly for each and all. But tackled as coordinated action problems, with monitoring and enforcement, outcomes can be guided to everybody’s benefit. Free markets aren’t suited to such simultaneous complex cross-agent coordinated change.

“Competition’s benefits arise from the constraints it creates. Intelligent constraints, and creative responses to them, can work better than what emerges from mindless ‘natural’ competition. The human trick isn’t self-organizing, it’s other-organizing. We’ve coordinated team survival for 10,000 generations. Our choices now are either to let the power of markets be dumb as trees, or to guide their competitions for better outcomes.”

My Comment: The world is becoming integrally interconnected. It is impossible to develop a plan according to our discrete abilities. It is impossible to plan all communication services, society, industry, etc., calculating everything, and managing everything as a single organism. This was an unreachable goal for Communists because they related to society as to a single system, they created by their singularly enforced methods.

Now the human community is becoming integral, not through our choice or enforced unification as in a socialist camp, but as a result of our natural development. The solution to the problem of the interconnected society could be only in bringing it to a predetermined integral form.

First, we must realize that we are not free: we are in the system of the upper management of nature. In its development, humanity advances along the path of unconscious development, like a child. This phase ends in our time. The phase of conscious human development ended in our time. Since the end of the 20^th century has come the stage where we have to study the law of nature and follow it. Nature is manifested as a global integral system and requires us, humankind, to match it.

We can fulfill this condition only if we re-educate people, through changing our egoistic relations to altruistic.

Floating Together Above The Water

Integral Education Convention, Workshop 1: What is mutual guarantee? Why is mutual guarantee the means for attaining theCreator, for the revelation of the Creator, for ascending to Him? Why is this the only way on all the 125 levels by which our ego develops? Our ego ascends and we ascend above it by the mutual guarantee between us.

The ego keeps ascending and we ascend even higher above it by the mutual guarantee between us. This means that there is no other means, no other state that we have to attain except for mutual guarantee.

It is the mutual guarantee between us that includes all the conditions according to which we reach an equivalence of form with the Creator. Mutual guarantee leads us to equivalence of form with Him, and then He is revealed.

When we become detached from ourselves and reach the feeling of “us,” of mutual guarantee, we find ourselves in a totally different volume, on a different level, in a different dimension. There is nothing personal anymore, and the feeling of the body and this world disappear. It is as if I move to a new empty space in which there is only my concern for the group, and there I meet the desires and the aspirations of my friends.

Thus we reach true mutual guarantee: a feeling of the common dome above us, the feeling of a new space in which we discover everyone’s aspirations that are focused on the group, on unity, on what is between us. Then, if this mutual guarantee is formed correctly, a need to turn to the upper force, to be in contact with it, awakens in it. It is in the mutual guarantee that we discover the desire to rise to this force and to allow it to delight us and to be in contact with us.

This happens naturally according to the progression downward. Everything is born from the top down, and it is in the same order that the movement from the bottom up is evoked in us. The Reshimot (informational genes) that are on each and every level are gradually revealed and we suddenly feel such a big space that we have to add our aspiration for mutuality with the upper force.

So the right balance, the right relations between us, on the level of mutual guarantee when we ascend above our ego, generate the desire for the upper force in us: to delight it, to allow it to be revealed in us, to be connected to it. When we are connected, the mutual guarantee between us and this force are formed.

But it is a gradual process. We either attain a certain level of mutual guarantee or not: we may have stalled, we may have left it, perhaps one of us has fallen and we don’t feel it. On the whole, the moment we reach this state, or not, as we stall in fulfilling the mutual guarantee since something interrupts us, a new level of ego, which is lower than the one we are on, immediately rises in us.

But we have to ascend according to the descent. We fall again and rise once more. The level of the ego that is revealed makes us feel the need to tighten the mutual guarantee between us. We have probably not been sensitive enough in fulfilling it, or we may have not fulfilled it completely. Perhaps we have fulfilled it completely, which means that we have to ascend even higher.

The ascent takes place in two ways:

• By the path of suffering when the additional ego is revealed before we have actually fulfilled the mutual guarantee between us because we have stalled, have stopped fulfilling it, or for any other reason.
• By the path of I shall hasten it, when we have fulfilled the mutual guarantee between us and have to ascend to the next level according to our attainment.

But in any case, the new level of ego that is revealed in us, the new egoistic desires, the repulsion, the weakness, and the descents are all it order to spur us and to raise us to a higher level.

How do we operate in a state of descent by using the mutual guarantee between us? How does the state of mutual guarantee help us fulfill the descent correctly?

If we have signed an agreement of mutual guarantee, have risen above the ego, if we have begun to feel even for a short while that we are connected on a higher level, above our world, feeling awe and aspiring forward, and suddenly one of our friends falls, we must understand that it isn’t just he that fell, but we have received a sign that we have to start this new ascent together with him.

In other words, the friend himself isn’t the issue, but the fact is that a new egoistic desire has awoken in the mutual guarantee between us and it helps us rise even higher.

What should we do if one of us falls? We have to descend to him, to his level, speak to him in his language as if we agree with him. We have to keep the level between us and at the same time descend to him and connect to him. After all, when we connect to him, we can raise him.

Then, when we surpass the level we were on, we can continue to ascend. Thanks to our descent to the friend, we can ascend even higher than the state we were on before we descended to him. This means that we have to regard any descent of a friend as an opportunity given to us from Above to a new ascent to mutual guarantee.

When we reach such a state above us, connect to it, ascending and descending together, breathing together, we build a Masach (screen). We are like a piston that ascends and descends as we pump more and more and more desire from our egoistic attributes to our altruistic attributes.

This is how we work. When a friend falls, we ascend and descend with him. The same thing happens when the whole group goes through a similar state. This is our continuous action.

If we manage to hold on to the intention to delight the Creator by our connection, like good children in relation to their mother, a state in which we connect and work together is called a raspberry ball, and perhaps we can also call it a “float.”

We have to constantly be in this state. Constantly! To float forward, backward, no matter where we move; we have to constantly be connected; we have to fall and to rise together. What is more, we must constantly be with the Creator both in our lowest state and in our highest state.

On the whole, this is the method. Everything else are individual cases of this method. The moment we connect and find the connection with the Creator at least to some extent, the moment we ascend and descend together, is the basis for everything.

So what does it mean to float above the water? How can we be on this float no matter which ways we are moving? This float is called Noah’s Ark. It is where the spiritual ascent begins. The moment you create this, the rest will follow.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day One 2/02/14, Workshop 1

When The Pointer Moves

From the book, Light of the Sun, Hints of Rosh HaShana: It is necessary to adhere and be connected with each other and be closed within one another in the hearts of everyone, so that we will be one union, serving the Creator wholeheartedly.

There is no partial in spirituality, meaning three, seven or nine Sefirot. There must be ten Sefirot because we don’t feel less than ten, we feel only a complete measure. This is like a machine within which data gathers and then suddenly the meter jumps. Like a watch that counts seconds inside, and when a whole minute is gathered, the pointer suddenly jumps to the following division.

That is exactly how our work happens too. This is because until we reach Malchut, we can work and pass through various states unconsciously. A person can go around and begin to do a multitude of things, but he must wait until he “gets it.” This is to say, he must pass through a particular number of actions, until it becomes difficult for him and he doesn’t know what to do with himself, and after this, he suddenly “gets it” and understands what he is doing! This is to say, he must reach saturation, a complete measure.

So when we gather, we must “adhere and be connected with each other and be closed within one another in the hearts of everyone, so that we will be one union, serving theCreator wholeheartedly,” meaning that it is necessary to discover a complete measure of desire. And this is a problem, because we seem to climb a mountain, and every time we fall, again and again. And so it is until a quantity of effort accumulates, a number of experiences are gathered, into a complete amount. As Baal HaSulam writes in Letter 19: “However, ‘time will do what the mind does not do.’ The Creator counts all the stimuli and collects them into the complete measure, which is the measure of hardness for the intended day.”
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From the Preparatory Lesson for the Arava Convention, 1/30/14

The Only Test

Question: This convention is a convention of our connection with theCreator. What does this mean?

Answer: There cannot be connection without feeling the Creator. Otherwise, how do we know that we have reached connection? We test it only by discovering the Creator within the connection. Only in this way can we be sure that we have connected.

Therefore unity between us cannot exist without that one force that is discovered within us as a characteristic that fills and connects us, that stabilizes us. This is what we call having reached connection. Without the Creator, the connection will not happen: He must stabilize our connection and testify that we have attained Him.
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From the Talk at a meal 1/26/14

A Formula With One Unseen Variable

Question: How can we unite if we don’t feel the pain of ourshattering?

Answer: Connection is only possible with a united effort. Alone you can scream for even a thousand years, but this won’t help. Here there must be a group effort where everyone is attracted to each other and ready for mutual guarantee (Arvut). Everyone must be ready to be responsible for the others: one for all and all for one.

These are the necessary conditions; it is impossible to replace them with anything else. And you want to finish the work yourselves, but this is impossible. You forget the formula and don’t take it into account. The formula is that we are making efforts to try to connect among us, to carry out all kinds of activities within the group in order to resemble the Light that Reforms. It must influence us and change us.

We are not changed by our connection. Through our inclination to connect, we awaken the intensity of the Light, the influence of the energy field in which we are found. The more that we try to connect between us in all kinds of forms, with this we awaken the action of bestowal, meaning the Creator who fills the world. And He illuminates us according to our efforts, and it is not important that they might be incorrect and confused. The main thing is the effort that attracts the Light that Reforms. And then this Light changes me.

You ask: What form must we attain? This doesn’t concern me and doesn’t matter to me; I never reach that form myself. It is the Light that influences me and connects me with the friends in this form that is suitable to its revelation. Then instead of Ohr Makif(Surrounding Light) that arranges and corrects our connections, it transforms into Ohr Pnimi (Inner Light).

This is the same Light; no changes are made in the Light itself. But it sometimes appears as Ohr Makif and sometimes as Ohr Pnimi, sometimes as NRNHY and more. There exist a multitude of types of Light: Ohr Yashar, Ohr Hozer. But it is precisely the Light that makes the form for me.

You say: “We want to reach connection!” Where is the Creator within this sentence? And what do we want this connection for? Also for His sake! The Creator realizes this connection and He is also discovered within it. And from our side, we are only attracted to this connection, but certainly we don’t succeed in doing anything if the Light does not connect between us. All that is required of us is to attain the right intention.
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From a Preparation Lesson for the Arava Convention, 1/30/14

The Near And The Far

We need connection, yet not connection between us, rather with the Creator. Therefore in order to reach connection with the Creator, to discover him, it’s up to us to build an appropriate relationship between us according to the principle, “the end of the action is in the preliminary thought.”

The connection between us must pass above the ego and cause mutual bestowal.

This connection must be equal for everyone, both distant and close. It’s up to us to be concerned about all of our friends all over the world since this makes it possible for us to feel if we are in bestowal or not.

This is because I don’t feel any closeness to friends who are far away. We are in an inner connection with people whose faces are familiar, and it’s different with friends who are not included in this circle. They provide me with the right feeling: Am I truly found in bestowal or not?

This is very important: Am I maintaining the right orientation? Am I concerned about all of the friends as they are, like a mother who brings all of her children “under her wing”? This is a sign for me of yearning for bestowal.

That is how each one examines himself, is concerned for others, and strengthens them. And together we aim to keep the connection with the Creator, for the compliance with the similarity of His properties. For this is what is most important, discovering the Creator according to our yearning for Him, for bestowal. And we realize this bestowal among us within the group, and also between all the friends around the world.

This is because there is no far and near in spirituality. Bestowal is bestowal. But the problem is that I don’t comprehend the entire system, only some part of it. But this part is also integral. It cannot be less than this or more than this, for there is no “partial” in spirituality. The system can be revealed to me to this degree or another, but there is no measuring stick for integrality, for it is always revealed one hundred percent in each part.

Therefore it’s up to us to aspire to feel a homogeneous group, complete in everything. There are no great and small, there are no far and near. I relate to all equally. This is a very important test with whose help I correct, “polish,” and “calibrate” the characteristic of bestowal within me so that it will be more and more correct.

And within the characteristic of bestowal, I become closer to feeling the Creator. And in this way I correct my Kli, vessel, desire; it comes closer and closer to discovering the higher power. It’s good and benevolent to the bad and the good, to the near and the far, to all without exception. Therefore I also advance in that way.

In this case, through my efforts, I awaken the Light that Reforms and it brings me into compliance with it. And so the question is, right now, how do we direct ourselves towards the power of bestowal, towards the Creator, with the help of an equal relationship to the near and the far?
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/28/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

Connected Hearts

Question: In what manner are we included in the ascents and descents of the friends?

Answer: We want to unite and be included in the feelings of the friends in that we nullify ourselves in regard to each other as much as our heart is ready for this. We want to take sandpaper and rub our heart so that it will be more sensitive to others; we want to do something with him so that he will not be so opaque. If I am linked to the heart of the friend, I acquire all that is in his heart: all his ascents and descents, everything that he did in the past, both the good things and the bad things.

In fact, it is not important if they are good or bad, for I acquire the intensity. The Creatorarranged the bad things for a friend from the start. The good things could happen to him in the way of suffering or in the way of Torah and they pass over him. I can acquire, receive, all of this experience. It was specifically for this that there was the shattering of the desires so that everyone could do his small part of the work and could we could enrich each other through mutual integration.

We don’t understand what a spiritual level is. It is not so high that it is impossible to attain, but only if we take the entire history of each from each other. Through my inclusion with a friend, I acquire all the incarnations through which he passed, the entire way through which his soul passed, in that he descended from the world of Infinity (Olam Ein Sof) and was shattered together with my soul. And after this, we underwent a multitude of incarnations together, and now we have met in order to be linked with each other.

After the shattering of the collective soul, the souls were divided and distanced from each other. They passed through a long process of change, passing through Babylon and the rest of the trials. And now that they have finally reached connection, I can receive all that the rest went through and experienced throughout all of history, and therefore I become a complete Kli that includes the whole world within it. And this is how it is for each one of us, and nobody bothers another!  This is the unification of the integral Kli.

It is completely unimportant if the friend feels this or not. If I subdue myself and connect with him, I receive his effort, his connection, all that is in him.
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From a Preparation Lesson for the Arava Convention, 1/30/14

The Two Poles Of Oneness

When I feel that I lack the right desire, I need to ask for it. This is called the “prayer before prayer”: I pray in order to awaken a request in me for the Creator, the right desire that I don’t have at the moment.

Now on the contrary, I would rather eat and take a nap, but I ask to be awakened; I want to feel the emptiness of my current thoughts and above them awaken to bestowal, to love, and to feel fulfillment from this. The request itself, the turning towards the Creator, is my “nourishment,” filling me with vitality. You see, in this way I am linked to the Creator, and I don’t need anything more. So how could I sleep now?

Question: But if I don’t want to sleep anymore, so haven’t I nullified this desire within me, and not gone above it?

Answer: Now I am in need of other fulfillment. I love the other and want to bestow to him. My previous desire doesn’t disappear; it burns within me as before, but at this moment I am involved with bestowal.

There is nothing I can do about it; in spirituality I always have two desires, two feelings. On the one hand I feel my inner emptiness that I don’t want to fill as usual, and on the other hand, I want to stay above it with a desire to bestow. I must have this emptiness as my “body,” which is what I have restrained. Without it, I would not be able to advance.

The question is how is it possible to feel these two desires simultaneously? TheTzimtzum (restriction) was designed for this: I take control over the desire, in spite of its power and above it, build a Masach with an intention to bestow and a burning aspiration for it.

This is the duality that is discovered in spirituality, and we must get used to it. One of its most prominent examples is told in the Torah: (Genesis 21:12) in Isaac shall your seed be called, the Creator says to Abraham; and after that He ordered him to sacrifice Isaac in the land of Moriah, (Genesis 22:2) and offer him there for a burnt-offering. How do we integrate these two contradictory stipulations?

Baal HaSulam writes in Letter 51: a person cannot scrutinize the body and the soul as two subjects. Rather, he is composed by the Creator as one, meaning as one subject, and therefore spiritual perception is difficult for him, really like two opposites that are impossible to clothe in one subject. And in spite of it all, we must internalize this principle, to comprehend it somewhat, otherwise we simply will not survive.

And if it’s bad for me today, if I am tired of my futile efforts, lose direction and prefer to take a nap, if emptiness dominates me, the despair, the powerlessness, and life begins to surprise me with unpleasant surprises, on the one hand I must rise above the problems that are sent to me and see them not as obstacles but as salvation. You see, without them I would not feel a need for the Creator, for the help of the Creator.

And therefore it’s necessary to hold these two points together, to be in Bina and Malchutsimultaneously, and go forward like this. The person must be “divided” into two: into a body (desire to receive) and a soul (an intention to bestow). He requires this split. However, the desire doesn’t disappear; it’s not nullified, and I will need to work above it all the time. Within it dwells emptiness, and above it shines the goal that I want to attain. So the “head of the Partzuf” makes the right calculation in spite of the “rumblings of the stomach.”

However, both must be perceived by the receiver, as they are for the joy of the festival, continues Baal HaSulam. It is precisely between these two poles where happiness is found. Through our discussion today about the perpetual contrast between them, we build the foundation for the future Masach.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”