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Dear Readers,

Due to the blog editor going on holiday for two weeks there will be no updates until the 20th of July.
In the meantime of course the daily blogs can be all read from
Michael Laitman's Personal Blog

The Main Thing Is to Be Able to Change

Question: Is it right to keep demanding more from the friends?

Answer: Everything depends on you. Demanding more from your friends is the same thing as to demanding more from the Creator, theUpper Light, which influences the Kli. It may happen that their response will seem opposite to your expectations.

We need to understand that we live in a world that is constantly approaching the end of correction. By properly “reading” the data about it, we will feel closer to the Lights and will change according to them. But instead of changing “linearly,” we will change cyclically, as we pass through the five degrees of HaVaYaH over and over.

However, I do not know exactly how I need to change. But I always remember that the Creator gives me more every time. “The Good who does good,” “There is none else beside Him,”  He keeps growing greater before me.

And what I feel does not matter. I am heading in the right direction when I want to know where He is every moment and I keep Him in sight.

As a result, I see that the purpose of all the stages and states is to reveal the Creator’s bestowal before me so that He would really become great in my eyes. This is what will happen if I am able to change.

This is why Baal HaSulam begins Shamati with the article “There Is None Else Beside Him.” We must direct and orient ourselves this way: The Light is being revealed more and more, and we must find a middle ground.

On one hand, “There is none else beside Him,” “The Good who does good,” on the other hand, my desire, which is opposite to him, and in the middle, I build my attitude towards the Creator, in order to strengthen this formula within me.

In this case I constantly change.

How? I cannot change my desire and sensations. They come naturally, and I do not mislead myself when it comes to them. The principles of “The Good who does good,” and “There is none else beside Him” also cannot change.

But I can build my intention in the middle, change it, and correct it each time in order to harmonize my desire with the Creator’s greatness.

This “buffer,” “adapter,” the peacemaker between the two opposites, is called faith above reason; I advance because of it.
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From 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 12/3/10, Writings of Rabash

Diseases Are The Result Of The Ego

Question: Why are diseases and physical sufferings needed?

Answer: These are the results of the general uncorrected ego. As long as it exists in the souls, even the corrected soul, that are in complete connection with the uncorrected souls, will feel suffering.

Question: It is possible to understand why suffering is required for Kabbalists so they can learn to rise above the level of the beast, but what about ordinary people?

Answer: We are all in collective dependence as a single entity, the soul, a desire to receive. If it is “for its own sake,” then we suffer, if it is “for the sake of the Creator,” meaning similar to the Light, then we enjoy.

Question: Isn’t this cruel to fill poor creatures with suffering?

Answer: The Creator takes our final state into account; His conduct is derived from the need to bring us to the complete end of correction and perfection.
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It Is Not Easy To Love The Creator

Question: I know that many of our friends have major health problems, but I want to ask about my mother. She is a friend of our group and very invested in it. In the last two years she has been very ill and suffers so much that you can’t bear to see it.

Whatever we do, nothing helps. This causes anger at the Creator and interferes when you go out and want to convey His love to people. I don’t know how to handle this.

Answer: I understand that it is difficult to speak about love for the Creator when it is clear to us that everything comes from Him. Certainly if we receive great blows of fate, we are not prepared to justify Him.

This is because these are two mutually exclusive feelings: injustice and misfortune and immediate justification. One extinguishes the other because we don’t comprehend how it can be that from a good and beneficent power suddenly all the problems and sufferings of humanity emerge.

We have not yet reached a state where we can see the truth. We are not in a dimension in which the opposites are connected and there is no contradiction between the sufferings of a person and the omnipotence and uniqueness of the Creator.

This is a bit like the paradox: is an electron a particle or a wave? It seems to be both this and that. It depends upon the observer, how he looks at it. And what is the person himself? We don’t know what he is himself. It is the same thing here.

In any case, it is necessary to act: Go to the doctors, carry out their recommendations. And despite all the contradictions, my advice is to turn to the Creator. On the one hand, ask for help for your mother (in general, this is your need). On the other hand, ask the Creator to help you, not to understand Him, but to depart from the state where you condemn Him.

Question: Indeed for many of our friends throughout the world there are difficult problems like these.

Answer: Nobody can guarantee that we will develop in exceptional goodness. Once, ten or twelve years ago, I was getting ready to travel to Moscow to give lectures and disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah. But one day before the trip I was in an accident. As a result, half of my liver was removed, I underwent a number of operations for my lungs, and in addition to that my leg was broken.

Looking at it logically, I needed to fly to Moscow to begin dissemination there, and look how they stopped me. So what is there to do after this, stop everything? We don’t know where we are going. But the blows do what they do.

Question: How much can the support of the group, the world Kli, help our friends in situations like these?

Answer: Basically, we say: “Let’s pray, let’s think.”, but essentially these words are not worth anything. Only our combined efforts give results, not words and exclamations.
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From the Sochi Convention 6/10/14, Lesson 3

Qualitative Effect

Question: When going out to disseminate we seriously depend more on external results: being liked, not being liked, success, failure. We are missing any direction of thought as to why we are doing it. The goal is constantly elusive.

Answer: There is a lack of unity within the group in which the Creatorexists or any vital necessity of discovering Him, the point of connection of the group with the Creator. You must reveal our method to others without any personal interest, with complete bestowal. For you are indeed coming and presenting the higher power that is needed to correct them. Everything that follows is derived from that, everything comes from it, and you are a conduit for its transfer. And so nobody understands why this effect is obtained. The effect is a law of nature.

I suppose that we have two problems. But it is indeed impossible to demand their immediate resolution. This will come with time.

First of all, little attention is paid to the consolidation of the group from which you are going forward, for within it the Creator is discovered, and you are really presenting Him to the external public. It is impossible to be passive here because you are carrying out the work of bringing the higher power to the masses, and it carries out all the rest. This doesn’t mean that you should immediately relax and release yourself from any responsibility; rather, you must feel this power of unity called the Creator within yourselves and give Him the opportunity to work on the person.

Specifically in this point of contact of the Creator with the external public, when you present Him to them through your efforts, you begin to discover Him. You lack this point; the Creator is not revealed anywhere, but only in the unity that you organize. The unity gives us a qualitative effect.

The you won’t have any problems. You job is done: You brought the Creator down to the people and revealed His vessel (Kli) that He preparesd through the Surrounding Light. Whatever results there may be, ultimately it will always be positive. This contact is very important.
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From the Sochi Convention 6/10/14, Lesson 3

In Harmony With One Another

Question: At what stage of the work does a person attain freedom of will?

Answer: Only after he has acquired a soul, after spiritual revelation.

A spiritual Partzuf is divided into two halves: the upper half-Keter,Hochma, Bina, Chesed, Gevurah, and the upper part of Tifferet; and the lower half, the lower part of Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut; and between them, the third part of Tifferet.

The upper part is comprised of desires to bestow, and the lower part is made of desires to receive. What is the middle then, the third part of Tifferet? It is not related to reception or bestowal, and here is where the freedom to choose what will you do with it is.

But you, like Buridan’s donkey, can’t pick either direction, are torn apart, unable to make a choice, until we discover that herein lies an opportunity to unify these two halves: the upper and lower halves to work together in the third, middle line!

I unify these two forces, the force of bestowal and the force of reception, and they start governing me together. This is called “receiving in order to bestow,” when the two forces work in harmony with each other.

This is the essence of Kabbalah, and for this reason it is called “Kabbalah” (reception); after all, it teaches how to receive these two forces, bestowal and reception, in such a way that they complement each other. And thereby you build your independence, true freedom.

You are independent of the Creator and simultaneously like Him! You learn from His example while remaining totally independent. You don’t have any other model to follow because receiving these two forces is mandatory. But how to accept them and be like them, in that, you are totally free.

Here, in middle between these two forces, in the middle third of Tifferet, lies our soul that we are constructing ourselves. The freedom of choice begins with the revelation of the Creator. It is written: “The dead are free,” which means that when egoistic desire dies, the two forces, reception and bestowal, stand facing each other, and you are between them, and then you are free. After all, you can work with both these forces equally.

Even though it seems to you that you are standing between them not knowing where to move since on one side you have the desire to receive and on the other the desire to bestow, but when one destroys the other, only in this condition, are you in a neutral state and may act freely.

As for now, we are all under the authority of the only desire to receive, and we have no desire to bestow. Therefore, until we have acquired the will to bestow, we are as beasts controlled by nature; but once we have obtained it, we become free and solely in the desire to become similar to the Creator and construct a human (Adam), which means “similar” to Him.
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From a lesson, 10/8/10, BaalHaSulam, “The Freedom”

Building A Platform For Correction Of The World

Question: Baal HaSulam writes to his students in “Letter 48″ that an arrangement has been built for them that will make it possible for them to remain in their state and not withdraw backward. What is this arrangement?

Answer: Every Kabbalist during his tenure in this world goes through a particular process of correction and organizes his students so that they will gradually be ready to hear about the wisdom of Kabbalah, and, after that, he begins to work with them gradually on the scrutiny of the wisdom itself and to guarantee them with actions that, in a direct manner, are relevant to correction.

In our group, we have passed through many states. In the beginning, we just studied, although, as was understood even then, we spoke about the connection and closeness between us. Gradually, we began to be involved more in the dissemination of the wisdom of Kabbalah in publishing books.

Thanks to these activities, we have begun to feel the system more and understand that it is closed and connected in all its parts and we cannot do so without external dissemination.

When we began to be involved with external dissemination, we began to change ourselves. Our manner of studying and the way of acquiring material changed. As a result of this, we have reached a stage where serious changes have begun to happen in the world. In the meantime, people don’t see all the changes, but we already have re-examined the entire path through which humanity has passed until today.

This entire way was egoistic; the ego grew and pushed us forward. However, now we are beginning to understand that this entire process is destructive and leads nowhere. So, we soon will reach the conclusion that it will be necessary to change the entire structure of human society somehow, from the family and the person himself to the society, the nation, and the entire world. Everything is in a serious crisis and demands change.

Crisis means both the destruction of the old world and the birth of the new. Accordingly, we are beginning to work differently among us and with the entire world. We are studying other chapters from the sources and going into them deeper.

The work is being made more practical, in other words, is directed toward realization: connection, love of friends, awakening their hearts, and adhesion as one person with one heart.

This is our main goal: above our ego, above Mount Sinai (the mountain of hatred [Sina]), to agree to be as one person with one heart, and always in response to this agreement, this aspiration, to receive the Light that Reforms which is called Torah.

In this way, we constantly advance and change, and most importantly, our present changes depend upon the entire world, and vice versa. Through the changes in us, we influence the entire world. Soon, we will begin to feel this whole system, how the entire, integral world advances, turns, and changes its form according to the decisions that we make here and that we realize among us.

The wisdom of Kabbalah first began to be revealed from its complete concealment and gradually unfolded in a theoretical manner. And then it was completely stripped of its mystical clothing. As Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to the Study of the TenSefirot”: However, when I begin to speak to anyone about this study, his first question is, “Why should I know how many angels are in the sky and what their names are? Can I not keep the whole Torah in all its details and intricacies without this knowledge?”

We already have been actively realizing this method. Our goal is to build a platform for the general correction of the entire world for those who step forward as leaders of this collective movement and for all the people who will go after us, in order to be spare them from the blows.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

The Goal Of Creation Is To Reach Love

The goal of creation is to reach love, and the meaning of love is not the customary meaning of physical attraction generally not related with love but about receiving personal satisfaction.

True love is connection by which we feel the deficiencies of others and act in order to fill their desires. The deficiency grows during the ascent. It is prepared for us in advance on every level. However, in order to attain it, we must ascend from the bottom, from the shattering upward. This means that we always advance against our ego, against the shattering.

So, we must increase the desire that was prepared for us from above 620 times by our exertion, and then we will discover the connection that was between us before, 620 times more strongly.

It is like a drop of semen, a point of the desire that was adhered to the Light of Ein Sof(Infinity) and now has grown 620 times more since it must exert itself each time against its shattered desire. Thus, it goes through the phases of Ibur (conception), Yenika(suckling), and Mochin (mind), until it reaches an equivalence of form with the Upper Light.

Baal HaSulam writes in Letter No. 11, “…but you should feel the love, and it is felt only in a place of deficiency. This is the meaning of, ‘He who shares the suffering of the public is rewarded with seeing the comfort of the public…’”

The preparation for adhesion to the Creator is achieved by working with the public where all the deficiency for Him is concentrated. Thus, I can establish my yearning for love. To the extent that I can develop the love of others within me, I prepare myself to the adhesion with the Creator.

“…and ‘To the extent that a person allots, he is allotted.’” Intervention from above cannot be more than intervention from below since everything is measured according to the deficiency, and the Upper Light has no measure.

“You have often heard that all the good of the awakening from below concerns only our learning how to feel the deficiency…” I cannot receive a readymade deficiency, but rather must establish it by myself, step by step, by searching, by ascents and descents, with regard to the environment. It isn’t the deficiency that matters but acquiring the art of attaining the deficiency. Thus, I learn God’s ways.

“…as it is set before us by the Creator.” We don’t establish the deficiency by ourselves, but rather discover it through our efforts.

As it is written, “A prayer makes half,” because as long as one does not feel half of the deficiency—the part that was cut off from the whole, and the part does not feel as it should—one is incapable of complete Dvekut (adhesion).

There is a deficiency, and there is a derivative of the deficiency, in other words, a deficiency that is a deficiency like a prayer before a prayer. We feel a slight deficiency of spirituality, but it isn’t real. It wears us out and causes us pain, and we don’t know what to do with it.

“It is so because this will not be considered advantageous for him, and one does not keep or sustain a needless thing.” We don’t feel any deficiency for this deficiency, and so the actual feeling of the deficiency is the reward.

“Our sages told us that there is a remedy for this feeling by the power of the prayer. When one is persistent in praying and craving to cleave unto Him perpetually, the prayer can do half, meaning that he will recognize that it is half. When the sparks multiply and become absorbed in the organs, he will certainly be rewarded with complete salvation and the part will cling to the whole forever.”[138190]
From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/18/14

The Spiritual Spark Cannot Be Locked Up Inside Myself

Question: Where does a person find the power that enables him to awaken the friends?

Answer: I would say that this force comes from heaven, since it belongs to the spiritual spark, to the Reshimo (reminiscence) that awakens in a person. We can actually feel if and how much a person is drawn to it.

This inclination can be revealed in different ways: one may act quietly and calmly while another may be burning and sparkling, but these are only external attributes.

Only the inclination to awaken people belongs to the spiritual spark. If this spark is seriously revealed in a person, we can see it by a person’s actions. He cannot be locked up inside himself.

Of course, he goes through different times when he yearns to know and to study, to be totally immersed in the spiritual world, which he doesn’t know and doesn’t understand. But the inclination to disseminate this knowledge and to tell others about it burns inside him.

If a person has even a small inclination, he should be spurred and supported by the environment. If he has been brought to the group, it means that he has been given the chance, but how he fulfills it is up to him.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/24/14

Free Zone Times 620

According to logic, there isn’t any freewill. After all, there isn’t any free movement; everything is controlled by the forces acting in nature and is subordinate to one upper force encompassing the entire universe.

If someone feels differently, it is simply due to the lack of knowledge of the general system. If I am within the system in which I was born and which defines everything for me, how can I be free from it? The general force of nature acts, leaving no empty space, for the entire system is closed and works as a well-coordinated mechanism; so where can it give me freedom?

There is no thought or desire in a person where the upper governance would not be present initially determining the person’s actions. Freedom begins when we wish to unite in the group with our points in the heart and begin to look for where we have free choice. We wish to establish a connecting field between us, the former place of the breaking. And this field, created with our ties, is the place of real freewill.

It is another dimension, which has never existed before, a completely new plane of existence. If we discover a new space that never existed in creation, we exit this world into some other dimension, another world. We can say that are immersed into creation deeper and deeper and discover a tiny hole through which the entrance to infinity suddenly opens to us.

In the same manner, having corrected the state of the breaking, we don’t go back to the initial stage that preceded it, but due to the fact that we have attained it through our freewill, we enter a new realm that never existed in nature: the realm of our freewill.

We build a state among ourselves that will serve as a spiritual vessel: a new vessel, desire, will to receive (Tarach), and in it a new Light, NRNHY, which is 620 times greater! The names that existed before the breaking may have remained the same, but their essence has become completely different.

This is why it is so important for us to find this point of our freewill where we will be able to break free into the new dimension.
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From a lesson 10/22/10, “The Freedom”

Moving Back In Time

Question: Is it possible to move backward in time?

Answer: Yes, it is possible. If I manage my states, then what I feel in the desire to receive, which is part of me now,  is my present.

I can go down and divide my desire again into parts, and this will be my past. And I could make some kind of calculation about the future, where I have not connected with others in the meantime. That future connection is my future.

Question: But why would I suddenly want to go back?

Answer: Maybe I will want to be clothed in a smaller desire so as to connect with new people on their level. But basically, I only want to go forward, to the future, to greater and greater connection with all the desires that exist in humanity to merge them into one desire.

And then I will receive a complete fulfillment that is beyond time. There is no time there anymore, no space; everything is found in one desire. After all, in all of reality there is nothing besides the substance, which is the desire to receive.

Question: What is this feeling?

Answer: This is a very pleasant feeling, it is impossible to say more! But it is necessary to learn the method: to learn to immerse into it to raise myself to a good life with its help, which is found beyond time.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 4/17/14

Body And Soul

Question: How is the soul connected with the body?

Answer: Only the soul exists; whereas, our body and all the other physical bodies around us are imaginary existence, given to create the start of an altruistic connection between us, so that we will not create an egoistic connection between us but an altruistic connection, and to the degree that it is created, our body (and all of physicality as a whole) will take up less and less space in our consciousness, until it absolutely disappears from our feeling.
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A Covenant Full Of Love

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot“, item 119: This is also why the great privilege, when one is awarded sentencing himself to a scale of merit, is still not enough for one to attain whole love, meaning the fourth discernment. This is so because now he does not attain His merit as being good who does good to the good and to the bad, but only His Providence over him.

Yet, he still does not know of His Providence in this sublime and wonderful manner with the rest of the people in the world. Thus, we learned above that as long as one does not know the dealings of the loved one with others, until none of them is missing, the love is still not eternal. Hence, one must also sentence the entire world to a scale of merit, and only then does the eternal love appear to him.

On the way to complete adhesion and attaining the goal of creation, we attain all our deficiencies and all of the Creator’s actions on us during the whole process we have been through when the upper Providence was concealed. Then a person sees how in all the stages, in everything he has been through, the Creator was good and benevolent to him in absolute love.

As a result, a person feels that he loves the Creator back. But this isn’t enough, since he also has to work on the future, so that he will keep the same attitude. This means that he has to develop vessels inside himself that are called faith and confidence, so that in every stage in the future he will not lose faith in the Creator’s love for him.

Even this is not enough in order to determine that the Creator is good and benevolent, since it is all true only with regard to a person himself, and now he has to determine the same thing in regard to everyone else.

This means that at the end of correction, he attains everyone’s end of correction, and from this point he sees the whole human history and the entire path all the souls have gone through in the process of their correction.

These separate souls discover the connections between them above the sea of hatred in which they are immersed that separates them and keeps them apart. Through these connections of love, they feel how the sea of the ego separates them, and thus discover that the Creator constantly takes care of them in the best possible way, and that all the sufferings, the blows, and the problems that they have been through during all of human history and the ascent of the souls through all the worlds until the world of Ein Sof(infinity) were all out of the Creator’s great love.

When a person ascends the spiritual ladder, he becomes detached from his ego as he ascends, and then he sees that it was only in the ego that he felt the afflictions. If it weren’t for the ego and the desire to receive for himself at the expense of others, he would always feel only the love and great care of the Creator for him.

This means that he sees and understands that all the negative feelings don’t come from the Creator, but rather stem from his connection to his egoistic desires. Thus he determines that he is in contact, in a covenant with the good and the benevolent, and that this connection, this covenant, is full of love.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/18/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

A Wide Variety Of Workshop Questions

Question: We have a great need to have morning workshops. We would like to learn how you compose the questions that are difficult to answer and that force us to go beyond our limits in order to find it.

Answer: In general I ask two types of questions during the workshops. Either it is a question that has no answer for which you need to strain, like during childbirth, in order to find the common “fruit” between yourselves. After all, when such a necessity for everyone all together arises, then the center of the circle is born.

Thus, the question needs to be such that the person feels it tearing him apart inside and that he can solve it only if he gives up everything he has and merges with the others, hoping and making efforts to connect with the friends to find the answer.

Or it is a question where we need to clarify something from within that same common point that we found. And then the questions come in a certain order of the system and should follow in a logical way one after the other.

Here people need to support each other and connect even more. Technical questions might be interwoven with sensation questions, but people constantly need to work in thecenter of the circle.

There are circumstances in the workshop, when it is effective to draw a person out from the current process of the discussion. Suddenly a question is asked that seems to be from a completely different world. This is good too because confusion causes a reaction in people, one needs to find a foothold. People need to find it in the center between them.

These workshops are necessary for us; they are not meant for the external public. After all, we don’t want people to knock their heads together where each person is within himself. For those, we need to pad it with something soft so that they will not fall.
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From the Sochi Convention 6/10/14, Lesson 2

The Tipping Point For The Spread Of Ideas

In the News (from ScienceDaily): “Scientists have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. The scientists used computational and analytical methods to discover the tipping point where a minority belief becomes the majority opinion. The finding has implications for the study and influence of societal interactions ranging from the spread of innovations to the movement of political ideals.

“’When the number of committed opinion holders is below 10 percent, there is no visible progress in the spread of ideas. It would literally take the amount of time comparable to the age of the universe for this size group to reach the majority,’ said SCNARC Director Boleslaw Szymanski, the Claire and Roland Schmitt Distinguished Professor at Rensselaer. ‘Once that number grows above 10 percent, the idea spreads like flame.’”

My Comment: This means that according to science, in any confined space, area, state, society, or around the world, we only must have our friends comprise 10% of the population so that our method of correction becomes everyone’s property! This is the consequence of the influence of Malchut, the tenth part of the soul on the entire soul.
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The Primary Principle For Advancement

Question: What is the primary principle for advancement?

Answer: To better understand what spiritual work is we have to start at the very end, the last point, the goal: “merging.” It can be attained only with the influence of the Upper Light.

Throughout the whole path of one’s spiritual ascent, the correction of one’s egoism from its initial point until reaching the stage of final correction, at the very beginning of this path, the original point of correction of egoism, a person has to realize that only the Upper Light has the power to correct him.

In other words, the recognition of evil has to transpire within a person, as it is said: “I created egoism and the Torah to correct it”; this is the starting point.

It is the most important thing since it distinguishes between religious people and Kabbalists.

Religious people do not observe the evil within themselves and therefore they don’t correct it, rather they do actions that lead them to a heaven after death.

Whereas a Kabbalist knows that the possibility of revealing the upper reality is given to him only in this life; the death of the body does not add anything to him because there is neither paradise nor hell after death.

When a person refuses any chances to attain the goal by all the means that are available to him, but instead releases himself to the Upper Light and begins to rely only upon Him, it means that he is approaching the starting point of the ladder that leads us to the Creator.

Further on, he has to apply a lot of effort to pass all the gates and realize that they don’t lead to the upper world; this understanding allows him to arrive at the very last gate that is always open, the Gates of Tears, and enter.

Before achieving this state, there are many egoistic tricks that come from the revelation of evil, learning, attaining egoistic wisdom, dissemination, anything that replaces worshipping the Light, a state that is impossible to reach on our own, and can only be attained with the help of the Upper Light that corrects and raises us to the level of the property of bestowal.

Realization of evil can be accelerated only with the help of the group. Recognition of evil associated with our egoism should not be felt like a regular desire “for my own sake,” but rather like an understanding of our oppositeness to the Creator, a state that prevents us from attaining the goal.

The group, studies, and dissemination have to bind together in order to quickly initiate our understanding that only the Upper Light’s impact will save us.
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Freely Balancing Between Two Forces

Question: Can a person be free, and if so, in what ways?

Answer: First, you need to figure out what freedom is and what is being sought? Are we looking for freedom from the angel of death as it was carved on the tablets of the covenant, searching for eternal spiritual life, or do we believe that we can be free in our materialistic everyday activities?

Kabbalists explain to us that in regular life we don’t have any independence whatsoever, but rather all our life is already predetermined and each step is previously scheduled for us. Freedom is possible only if we rise above life to the decision making level, to the spiritual level.

This is where freedom of choice exists since there are two opposing forces at this level, receiving and bestowal; whereas within our world, there exists only one force, the one of receiving, which only allows us to accept more or less depending on our understanding of what we stand to gain or lose.

In other words, everything depends on our simple understanding of where we win or lose more. Thus, there is no such thing as freedom at all! I always weigh before deciding what to choose. After I evaluate the “cost” of something, there is no freedom of will left in me to go against it. My nature is tuned to maximum receiving and minimal giving. This is how we act in everything, consciously or not.

Sometimes it looks like we can go against our earthly logic, but it is an illusion since a deeper egoistic interest that defines our actions hides behind it.

But when we rise to the spiritual level and attain the desire to bestow, which works together with the desire to receive, we begin to have balance between these two desires and remain between them, in the middle third part of Tifferet, not leaning towards either side. We are not choosing what is more attractive to us, receiving or bestowal, otherwise it would not be considered an option, but rather depends on our evaluation.

Freedom of choice is possible only if I am between two forces, positive and negative (bestowal and receiving), and if I manage to set up myself between them as if I were an engine in the circuit.

Thus, I use both forces since I have freedom to build myself by including myself in both forces; this gives birth to a new reality. The free choice that we possess in spirituality allows us to build the Creator! The Creator is me but in a corrected state. That’s why He is called “Bo-Re” (come and see).

You build a new reality out of these two opposite forces. Before we reach this state, there is no freewill. There is no way to obtain freedom of choice by selecting from one force only or from two opposing forces; only if we manage to correctly connect them together do we get a third component called, “Adam  (Man)” or “The Creator.”

Our desire is made by a reverse imprint of the Light, so if it senses only itself, it turns out to be something dreadful!
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The Creator Takes 95% Of The Work Upon Himself

Question: If it is necessary to apply the spiritual law of Arvut (mutual guarantee) twenty-four hours per day, why were we given this entire world with all of these concerns—work, family, and children—that take up 95% of our time?

Answer: Everything is arranged such that, from all these conditions, you will reach the realization of the goal. If it takes 95% of the time, then 5% of the time is probably enough for spiritual work.

Ninety-five percent (95%) of the time you must work in the material world, and 5% is left to you for inner work and dissemination. This means that you are under conditions where the Creator says, “I will take upon myself 95% of your spiritual work!” Instead, you go to work, the market, the bank, the family, and so forth, and all that comprises this 95% of your time will be considered as if you were engaged in spiritual work.

However, during the 5%, you must be involved with spiritual work with all your might. If you do that, then 100% of your life will be dedicated to attaining the spiritual goal and correction.
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From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Adhering To The Teacher With My Entire Ego

Now everyone is equal, there are no exceptional people in thegroup and it may remain that way in contrast to all the previous generations since eventually we have to reach a certain Assembly of Kabbalists (“Sanhedrin,” a spiritual guidance).

Although there were differences among the Sanhedrin, we can imagine what hasn’t been fulfilled yet, but we can’t know anything in advance.

We have to act where we are now, find out what our role is and fulfill it. We shouldn’t worry about what may happen in the future. We shouldn’t ask about the future because that would be for our own benefit as our desire to receive is involved.

But with regard to the teacher, you must annul yourself when it comes to spiritual matters, as if you don’t exist. Otherwise, you will not be able to advance. Our advancement is only by annulling ourselves before the upper, so you have no other choice.

It says: “A blow from the elderly facilitates building, while building by the young leads to destruction.” Even if you think that the teacher is wrong, it makes no difference. Let him be wrong, and later you will see how the Creator turns this the other way around so that this mistake becomes a benefit.

There are states in which you have to accept everything that the teacher says without any doubt, to annul yourself, and follow his advice without clarifying why it is so and without wanting any proof. This is a small level of faith.

On a higher level of faith you’ll want to hear explanations as to why the teacher advises you to do certain things; you’ll criticize and see how much you object to a decision because you think differently, but yet you’ll still do it. You should fulfill it as if you have no complaints; you agree with him, and are totally adhered to him. Then you will be adhered to the teacher with entire your ego, especially if before you were against him.

But this is only true for great people. You should always listen to your ego until you can completely adhere to the teacher. It may be only minimal participation when you listen to what you have to do and do it. Perhaps you can invoke your own criticism, see how much you are against it, and still adhere to his opinion more and more. Thus, you grow inside the teacher like an embryo.

The more you annul your ego by fulfilling everything that the teacher wants while you are in complete disagreement, the more you turn yourself upside down like an embryo before leaving its mother’s womb. This is how you are born.

After your birth there is even greater work with more serious doubts and problems. They are typical of the state of smallness, the period of childhood, the wrath of childhood, the different Dinim, and it is always directed towards the upper. All our work is in annulling ourselves before the upper.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/14

Give Your All To A Friend

Question: In what way is the realization of guarantee among the people of Israel different from that among the nations of the world, i.e., the group and 99% of humanity?

Answer: Almost nothing. Certainly, the Light acts differently on each group: the upper (the people of Israel) and the lower (the nations of the world). But the guarantee may be peculiar to the mentality of the other nations, let’s say, Columbia or Malaysia. There is no significance in this.

In every case, you must simply yearn for this state, and the Light will arrange everything. It will cleanse, it will scrutinize, it will accommodate, and it will assemble. You will witness the work called the work of the Creator, and you will see how this will happen.

Question: Must the guarantee be realized among the friends with mutual strength?

Answer: In principle, no. I cannot check the Arvut (guarantee) of my friend. However, I need to enter maximally into this state. The moment we connect with the help of the law called Arvut, immediately we become an integral vessel in which we feel the Creator, in other words, the fulfillment of our desires that are mutually connected and integral.

However, when I try to create a general, integral desire, I must be ready to give everything over to friends. Mutual guarantee, mutual responsibility, I need to give over everything and what the friend does with me and what level he is on, how this seems to me (for in fact I don’t see his inner work), I need to appreciate maximally, for he is with me in a group.

In order to correct my vessel, I must feel his full participation, which depends upon this, how much I imagine that he is in full Arvut.

This means that I must locate myself correctly here. I don’t criticize; I don’t scrutinize who is in favor of Arvut and who is against it, who in the group is stronger in Arvut or who is weaker. I accept them all as absolute, and that is how I work. In fact, this is truly so because, the moment I establish my attitude toward the friends and say that they are all absolutely corrected and only I am not corrected, the system begins to mold me according to how they are.

I begin to receive Ohr Makif through them, and it molds me absolutely, according to their form.
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From the Sochi Convention 6/10/14, Lesson 3

The Mother Of A Billion Children

Question: What should I learn from yesterday’s experiences?

Answer: I should realize that yesterday my relationship with others was bad and what damage I have caused myself by that. Things cannot get better without the recognition of evil.

I have to realize how my short-sighted ego injures me since I have hurt others without feeling that it is actually me.

I decide that from now on I will do good for myself and for others, as it is written: “Love thy friend as thyself.” I reach the recognition of my evil egoistic nature and decide to rise above it. Thus I ascend above myself and move on to others, that is, I incorporate the desire of others inside me that become as important to me as I am to myself.

It is like a mother who feels the desire of her baby and lives within him. It is this same state we need to reach and begin to live in others. In this way I get closer to the concept of eternity by ascending above time.

Question: How can I not torture myself if I see that yesterday I treated others egoistically?

Answer: But I see that it wasn’t up to me; that it isn’t my fault and that I was created that way, a desire to receive.

Comment: But anyone can say, “It isn’t my fault, this is my nature!”

Answer: The whole question is whether I accept this nature or not. If I clarify it as a result of the right education, according to the method of connection, I realize that it is intentional so that I would want to change. I have to incorporate into others by different actions so that my desire and the desire of others will become one.

It is as if we all live in the same bowl. There is no difference between what is good for another and what is good for me or between what is bad for another and what is bad for me. This is the feeling I have to attain.

Thus I change the past, the present, and the future, because I include all of reality, all the people, into one desire and it all becomes my desire. The human desire also includes the desires of the still, the vegetative, and the animate nature. It turns out that all of creation is me!

Then I begin to discover that life is eternal and that there is no time: no past, no present, and no future. There is only the constant, increasingly growing incorporation into everyone else. This is a totally different time, as the change of states of an increasingly deep incorporation and an increasingly stronger feeling of life.

I see that I can discover the desire of others infinitely by my connection with others and enjoy together with everyone for everyone, like a mother who has a billion children and can fulfill all of them.
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From the program “A New Life” 4/17/2014