Ebola Is A Virus Of Imbalance

Question: The Ebola epidemic is threatening the world by putting humanity on the borderline between life and death. Where does the virus come from and what can we do to stop it?

Answer: The Ebola epidemic has attracted the attention of the whole world, but in fact there are many problems we have to deal with which are just as serious.

All the problems stem from the imbalance in human society. It is difficult to distinguish which of the problems that we are causing bring about wars and which bring about diseases, tsunamis, or volcanic eruptions.

There are many natural factors that can be more harmful to humanity than the Ebola virus. Experts, for example, predict a great volcanic eruption in California. Volcanic activity is constantly growing there and an eruption is very near.

If that happens, the ash could cover the whole sky to such an extent that we would not be able to see the sun. The temperature would drop to minus 50 degrees Celsius or even minus 70 degrees. It is unclear how we would be able to survive in such conditions.

We are in one system and its imbalance has reached a critical red line, which evokes the negative forces in nature. Everything depends on the level and type of imbalance that we summon. No one is punishing us on purpose in this way, and it is actually the natural response of the system. If the system is out of balance, it hits us.

We may, however, call it punishment, since on earlier levels in the past, we developed by blows that pushed us forward. The Ice Age is such an example. Baal HaSulam says that when the planet Earth was formed, it went through several phases of alternating heating and cooling and each period lasted for about thirty million years until the crust of the earth upon which life could exist was created on top of this giant volcano.

There have always been extreme processes on the surface of the earth, but they have quieted down and brought the earth to a state of balance so that life forms could appear. The temperature difference between winter and summer is about 20 degrees at the most, which is a negligible difference compared to what happened on this planet before it reached a balanced state when the temperature would rise to 2,000 degrees and drop to 50 or 200 degrees below zero.

Balance was achieved in certain conditions in which we can exist. Protein life can exist thanks to a temperature balance on earth, in the oceans, and on land.

As man developed, he rose above this whole system. All parts of nature are connected to one system: the atmosphere, the oceans, and the continents. The earth doesn’t exist according to the laws of states and nations that are divided by borders but as one planet with one ecology and general, collective, natural processes. People living on this planet today upset the balance.

This system has no intention of punishing us, but it reacts according to our actions, so we receive what we deserve from it. Of course it beats us for upsetting the balance on our human level. As a negative factor causing disequilibrium, humanity receives a counterstrike.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/19/14

Working With A Person’s Desire

Question: At the same time as the activity in Sochi, we have been involved with active dissemination in our locale. There have been close to two thousand people who have gone through our programs and have participated in circles and workshops. There were people who came regularly, time after time.

The question is: “What is our ultimate goal?” A person comes, sits in a circle; he likes the connection and unity; he even takes part in creating contact with us and later can act with us in partnership. But what is the goal? Is it that they will live better? What ultimately must happen?

Answer: The idea is that you must work on a person’s desire, on what he wants in his life. Accordingly, you must develop courses. Someone is interested in creating a family, another is interested in the education of children, a third is interested in working with his subordinates, a fourth is interested in mutual cooperation with the world, how can he be included in a society, more peaceful and healthy, etc. It is necessary to think about what he might “buy,” towards what his interests are directed.

Suppose that I go out to people. A hundred people are in front of me. I sit them in a shared general circle and go through a workshop in which they will begin to feel the right warm mutual cooperation between them. And it won’t be bad here if you ask them what they want in life, what is their inclination and yearning, what interests and concerns them. So I can easily determine in what kind of group I should include them.

This is because I have groups for the education of children, for creating a family, for improving productivity, to improve atmosphere in organizations, and more. But the direction of the group itself is not important to me because I teach them how to act with the right mutual partnership so that they will organize the right society among themselves.

The main thing for me is that they accept and perceive this right society as a field for discovering the unique force of nature where the characteristics of connection, mutuality, love, and warmth are created. They must feel this!

We must try to explain everything to them in a simple language, in the right, scientific language, with examples from daily life. Together with this, we summon a force that heals and calms us, that gives us a sensation of warmth, trust, and security. It creates everything that we greatly lack for a good existence. We need to bring them to it.

Essentially, without mentioning the Creator, we talk about His revelation, but we talk in words like these, so that they will understand all of this and no problems will pop up with them. It is necessary to develop our mutual cooperation with them specifically in this way, and the result of these courses will be the feeling of the general characteristic of nature: God is love.
[145693]From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/14, Shamati #5

The Root Of Ebola

Reference: Disturbing headlines in the media tell of a serious epidemic of Ebola rapidly spreading in several countries in Africa. Currently, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are about 4,500 deaths and around 9,000 infected and carriers.

A WHO internal document suggests that attempts to halt the pandemic have failed. The whole world is concerned with what is happening. Of course, a variety of Hollywood movies come to mind, including Virus, filmed almost 20 years ago; its plot is based on the epidemic of Ebola.

In fact, the first outbreak of Ebola was noted in 1976, and since then until 2013 about 1,700 people have died from the disease. Thus, the virus itself is not new, but over the years, it has undergone mutations and shows a very high mortality rate.

Ebola is transmitted by direct contact with bodily fluids of the affected. Its primary symptoms are fever, headaches, dizziness, and other symptoms often associated with influenza.

Over time, the symptoms are aggravated: there is external and internal bleeding, as well as some other characteristic effects. Gradually, the body begins to fatally bleed, and thus the second name of the disease is hemorrhagic fever. The incubation period ranges from 2 to 21 days, a relatively short period.

Meanwhile, the UN has declared the current epidemic as a threat to peace and security.

Question: In the prism of the laws of nature and the direction of the processes going on in it, what exactly creates such an epidemic that caught both victims and scientists off guard?

Answer: Let’s view the picture from the perspective of Kabbalah. We are in a strict natural system, and the imbalance that we cause in it, especially in recent years, brings about the phenomena of this kind.

Of course, epidemics occurred in the past. Some of them literally “mowed down” populations. But, anyway, viruses and bacteria, cells and organs, are all the elements of the same system. We think that Africa is far, that we have no connection to it, but in fact we are all parts of a whole.

That is why true medicine would take care to examine the general system and understand how it could be brought back to balance. After all, we systematically cause shifts in it and constantly disturb the balance, which leads to the disintegration of the subsystems and good connections, as well as to the creation of new, distorted ties, generating wrong, unfit cells.

We would like to erase harmful microbes from our lives. But for microbes, the human body is just a habitat. We are a “biological reservoir” for them in which they can live and multiply.

People drink a bottle of yogurt in the morning with ten billions of beneficial bacteria and even do not realize that their body is a “home” for a much greater number of “tenants.”

It turns out that we live in a huge system, where the distance is not so important, where no body is isolated from the community. This is a giant organism in which there are various kinds of beings, both beneficial and harmful to our health.

This system is constantly balancing itself, equalizing differences, and our task is to bring it to a true equilibrium where helpful, friendly microbes are given the opportunity to be in equilibrium with the harmful, pathogenic ones.

Conversely, if we break the balance, even if it is in favor of “friends,” they turn into “enemies.” To balance the “distortion,” they have to turn part of themselves into the opposite.

For example, only fighting against predators and pests brings even greater damage because we disturb the balance of the overall ecosystem. At the turn of the 1960s, China initiated pest control, in particular with sparrows, destroying crops.

Within a year, several million birds were killed, as a result, caterpillars and locusts burgeoned and yields declined so much that there was a famine that killed tens of millions of people.

Thus, there are no “good” and “bad” bacteria or viruses. Our health is based on the equilibrium between them.

Meanwhile, we ourselves occupy the top level in the pyramid of the still, vegetative, animate, and human nature. And our problem is how here, at the top, to create a balance between us. Then, equilibrium would descent from the highest level of the hierarchy to all other levels and would adjust all the connections. That’s right, from top to bottom the entire system is ordered.

Therefore, it all depends on people. I don’t want to appear as a fortune teller or a moralist, but if we, as a society, would try to maintain a balance between ourselves, if we would introduce into the social environment a little more equality, a little more warmth, closeness, and mutual aid, it would have a beneficial impact on the lower levels of total hierarchy, down to the still nature, including terrestrial and aquatic fauna and flora and the planet itself with its volcanoes, hurricanes, floods and other disasters. Thanks to us, the world will be eventually at rest.

After all, the human being occupies the top level in evolutionary development. In particular, the social, human relations today cause a total imbalance.

In this perspective, the essence of the problem is not Ebola and other troubles that threaten us. Many diseases that were rampant in the Middle Ages seemed to have vanished, but in reality they haven’t.

If we continue to exacerbate social imbalances, if we continue to break all the good relations between us, up to the complete rejection of unity and balance, then by “our efforts” forgotten diseases and misfortunes will return. The current protection from them is not wholly a panacea, and it will turn out that there is no remedy.

Indeed, we are continuing our bad development and it is clear that we are drawn into a protracted, interminable crisis. As a consequence, we cause problems, diseases, and other manifestations of imbalance but on another level, on the other loop. Therefore, the old means and medications will not help.

The time has come to reflect and understand that the only medicine that can protect and safeguard us all—is in the balance in human society. Only this system being positive on the top level, which is under our control, will allow us to ensure our health.
[145913]From KabTV’s “A New Life” 10/19

Guardians Of The Spiritual System

The Torah tells us how man gradually organizes the spiritual system in which the Light and the desire, that were created by the Creator, merge in the connection between them as Binaenters Malchut, Malchut enters Bina, and a mutual system is formed.

When Malchut enters Bina, which means when the desire enters the Light, it gradually weakens the Light, which results in the appearance of its different levels. When Malchutreceives the Light, it simultaneously builds all the systems that will help it reach the level of the Light in the future.

The Torah describes the frameworks in which the Light can spread through the desire and the desire can resemble the Light.

For example, what do the deaths of Nadav and Avihu, the sons of Aaron, symbolize?

Aaron is the great priest and he symbolizes one of the guards of the system of Providence, GAR of Bina, which is not allowed to convey the Light of Hochma through it.

Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, who symbolize the attributes of that system, wanted to add the Light of Hochma into it, but they couldn’t bear it and were torn by the Light. At the same time, it is not the death of the system but the creation of a guardian, in which only the force of the Light that Aaron can convey will go through.

This is called the death of the sons of Aaron, which means not receiving in this desire, bypassing this guardian of the Light of Hochma, since a Light greater than the Light on the level of Aaron cannot pass below that.

It turns out that Aaron is a filter that shuts the entrance of the Light downwards, since the lower cannot accept it and perceive it. If someone wants to ascend to the level of the Light of Hochma, he needs to ascend to the level of Aaron.

Question: Does this mean that there cannot be another shattering?

Answer: This isn’t a shattering but an adaptation of the connection between the Light and desire. These two forces of creation must establish a symbiosis of mutual actions between them so they will correctly filter the Light and desire from Above and below in order to enable the souls to ascend properly from the bottom up, to expand, develop, and thus be filled with the Light.

Thus, Nadav and Avihu are systems that are created specifically in order to organize the frameworks in which the Light can spread inside the desire and by which the desire can resemble the Light.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/19/14

The Most Stubborn And Most Purposeful

The Book of Zohar, “Tzav” (Command), item 16: “Command Aaron” comes to crown that spirit of holiness up above, separate the spirit of impurity and lower it down from Israel by desire and prayer, and from the priests in the act of sacrificing the sacrifice, each by what is appropriate for him.

A priest is the heaviest and most egoistic part in a person (the fifth level), who by correcting himself, reaches the most sublime heights.

The popular belief is that the priests have the worst character, as they are rude, rigid, and have no feelings. This is because when the lowest ego is corrected it reaches the greatest heights in its opposite form.

The ego of the priest is reversed and ascends from the lowest level to the highest level, and thus the priest can be the leader of the nation, the spiritual guide. Being on a higher level than everyone else according to his ego, he now becomes higher than everyone else according to his altruism.

On the whole, all Kabbalists are very stubborn, coarse people who work on themselves only to change internally and resemble the Creator. This is not seen on the onside, and in everyday life, they are ordinary people. All their spiritual work is concealed from the eyes of strangers, and therefore it is called the concealed wisdom.

The more a person develops spiritually, the tougher, more stubborn and obstinate he becomes. The Upper Light sustains him in this state and in all his actions. A person is in a state of clarification at every moment in his life as to what happens to him and how he can direct himself to the right path.

He first clarifies this and then sorts it out, burns, cuts, and kills his egoistic intentions by four kinds of deaths and leaves only the pure desires. Only then does he begin to correct them by attaching them to his altruistic intentions. Instead of thinking about himself, he begins to think about others; instead of worrying about himself, he worries about others; instead of loving himself, he begins to love others. Thus in every situation in life he puts his intentions through others to the Creator.

Therefore, for the priests it is the most sublime, greatest, most serious, and most spiritual law and decision.

On the outside it seems that the priest’s decisions constantly change, but on the inside he focuses on one point. But, because the ego is constantly swinging in different directions, it turns out that a person seems to be going round and round in the Sinai Desert until he cleans it completely.

He doesn’t change his initial decision, but only more finely tunes it, like a missile that constantly corrects itself according to the system that observes its flight, each time changing the angle of its flight and getting back on its initial track. A person also thinks that there are constant changes inside him while the goal and the direction remain the same. This is his future adhesion to the Creator, with the attribute of absolute love and bestowal, in the complete unity of all the shattered souls,

If a person constantly aims at this, he follows the optimal path.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 11/27/13

The Boundaries Of Progress

Opinion: Today, all measures are oriented towards adapting to emerging problems. We need a strategy for foreseeing them.

A report to the Roman Club (1972) shows the possible results of population growth and intended exhaustion of natural resources. The model is based on five major parameters: the Earth’s population, industrialization, food production, exhaustion of natural resources, and contamination of the environment. Each of them has dynamics of growth and impacts other parameters.

Within the last 50 years, the population of the Earth has tripled. Today, we live in an ecological niche that is not suitable for us: If a human being developed as a natural species, the number of people on the planet today would reach only half a billion, and humankind would live in warm climate areas.

We succeed by modifying our environment and making it comfortable for living. As a result, the population has reached seven billion people; the Earth’s energy and natural resources are about to be exhausted. We already know that development like this leads to a dead end.

Our society experiences “Cassandra’s dilemma”: nobody wants to change their lives at this time for the sake of a favorable future. We lack moral and spiritual values that allow us to care about the world.

However, a lack of an adaptation strategy is less crucial than the absence of a foreseeing strategy; all present-day strategies only tend to reduce existing stress.

Comment: Humankind is unable to create a strategy for our future advancement since it’s driven only by egoism. It’s obvious that we are incapable of reaching agreement. Only the higher strategy and methodology of elevation (morality, bestowal, and love from Above) can help us. Our task is to spread the knowledge that it’s in our power to elicit the higher energy, meaning the force that will change us by enhancing our collective mindand common desire and eventually resolving the problem of our mutual connection. This in turn will bring us deliverance and allow us to ascend the next level of advancement, to become Man.
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Useful Types Of Fear

Question: What is to be done with fear and trembling before adescent? After all, the Creator gave us the point in the heart and He can pick it up.

Answer: A descent does not at all mean that the Creator takes away the point in the heart. The fear of a descent can be the fear of the pain involved in a descent, when a person is detached from spirituality. He may fear it because he doesn’t want to be in this state, because during the descent he curses thegroup, the teacher, and the Creator.

He may also fear the powerlessness of the ascent after the descent; you do not raise yourself; you aren’t able to do this by yourself.  because he cannot do this by himself. This means that there can be a descent in which a person loses all connection with the upper world and he may not even be reminded of it. On the whole, there are different types of fear of a descent, and they are all very good and essential.

It is a blessing if a person feels fear. The remedy for this fear is the connection with the group, because when you fall, you cannot promise yourself in any way that you will awaken from the descent, except through the provision of the guarantee that the group will help you. There is no other way.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day One” 9/19/14, Lesson 2

How Can You Resist Love?

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot“:“Naturally, one who is imparted this open Providence is certain that he will not sin again, as one is certain that he will not cut into his own flesh and cause himself terrible suffering. In addition, one is certain that he will not neglect a Mitzva without performing it the instant it comes to his hand, as much as one is certain that he will not neglect any worldly pleasure or a great profit that comes into his hand.“

We don’t understand this. What does “open Providence” mean? If I reveal the good and the benevolent, it seems that I am free of all my worries, lying in the arms of the Creatorlike a baby lying in his mother’s arms. Does he try to solve anything, to understand anything?—no, he is simply wrapped with love.

Does this love weaken us? Doesn’t it make us lose our power of self-preservation?

This is the problem. Parents’ love spoils the children. If they treat them only with love, the children have no limits and eventually begin to hate the parents.

Baal HaSulam writes about parental love (in Letter 2): “Come and see a wonderful custom in this love, where apparently if the son is an only child of his father and his mother, he is obliged to love his father and mother more, because they show greater love to him than parents who have many sons.

But it isn’t so in reality, but rather the opposite, that if parents are strongly connected to their sons by their love then the value of loving the sons is minimized, until sometimes the sons feel that “any feeling of love in their heart is extinguished” which is nature’s law that is in the world.

And the simple reason is, that a father’s love to his son is natural…and the son doesn’t fear at all that this love may diminish, and he doesn’t hope that his love will grow, which is called “absolute love,” and then gradually the son grows lazy in showing his father good deeds…and it becomes his second nature, close to hatred…”

Children need two forces; they can’t hold on to one force only. Every person needs two “reins”: the force of receiving and the force of bestowal; a “shell” on the side of receiving and a “shell” on the side of bestowal. Only this provides us with some “coordinate system” and places us somewhere.

But if everyone treats me lovingly, it will confuse and irritate me. I have to decide, to settle down somewhere. My brain can’t stand this and so it may finally come to hatred.

How can I guard myself when the Creator is revealed, so that I can handle the revelation of His love? How can I create borders around me, limits, so as not to lose my independence, my “self”? How can I establish my attitude towards Him too?

After all, I mustn’t conceal myself from the Creator’s love. He wants to reveal it to me to the fullest, and I seem to object; “No, that’s enough. I already see that you are treating me well.” This would be showing contempt to Him.

So the revelation of the Creator brings about many more problems than His concealment. A person has to establish internal systems that will enable him to manage himself under much stricter limitations. This is an ascent up the spiritual levels: stricter limitations, in order to work above the egoism and to build greater Masachim (screens).

At the same time, the stronger the desire is, the stronger the love is. In our world too, we love naughty children more than quiet children. The absolute love is actually perceived in “bad” desires and vessels. It is there that it is felt as positive or negative and from there, eventually it receives a response from the Creator. Eventually when a person’s worst vessels are corrected, he can return the same absolute love for the Creator…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

Absolute Love Above Fictitious Hate

Question: Baal HaSulam explains that if parents treat their son with absolute love, the son will inevitably begin to hate them instead of returning their love since he won’t worry that the parents will stop loving him. What about the Creator: Will we also begin to hate Him when we discover His absolute love for us?

Answer: We have to reach absolute love towards the Creator in our spiritual work, meaning regardless of whether we receive pleasure or punishment from the Creator. Our spiritual growth is based on developing love while feeling a growing feeling of repulsion until it reaches absolute hate, meaning feeling that the Creator hates us more and more while we develop a growing absolute love towards Him, in order to work in faith above reason.

Thus we can understand why the Creator has created in us desire in which we feel pleasure or pain. But we have to rise above that in a new feeling of bestowal, and then our attitude towards the Creator becomes totally independent of His love since we establish our attitude above the feeling of hate, according to the principle “love will cover all sins.”
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So That You Will Not Forget The Gift Of Love

From Baal HaSulam, Letter 2: “Therefore, I shall advise you to evoke within you fear of the coolness of the love between us. And although the intellect denies this depiction, think for yourself, if there is a tactic by which to increase love and one does not increase, that too is considered a flaw.

It is like a person who gives a great gift to his friend. The love that appears in his heart during the act is unlike the love that remains in the heart after the fact. Rather, it gradually wanes each day until the blessing of the love can be entirely forgotten.

Thus, the receiver of the gift must find a tactic every day to make it new in his eyes each day. This is all our work, to display love between us, each and every day, just as upon receiving….”

From the side of the Elyon (Upper) nothing has changed from the beginning of creation, throughout all of the points in the process of evolution to the end of creation. Everything develops only according to our perception, so that we will gather all of these points during our development and in each of these points we discover Ein Sof, absolute love, “there is none else besides Him,” that He is the good that does good, and that besides this there is nothing but adherence with the beloved.

There are no changes in the attitude of the Creator towards us, and what we must achieve is that our attitude towards Him will also not change. So if a person sometimes feels the sudden emotion of love within himself, he should know that this comes to him as an example. And now he must awaken that same feeling in himself through the environment, study, and prayer by investing all of his energy and using all means for the sake of it.

He must focus all of his attention only on this one thing, for we must reach this love, not sometime later, but at each and every moment discover it within us. At every moment, we need to try to feel the love within us, using all means of belonging to adhesion with the Creator. We must be found in an incessant inclination like this, for at every moment our feelings change and we are constantly required to renew them again and again. That is how we adhere to the means that connect us with the Creator and then connect with the Creator through them with connections of love.

A person must remember all of his thoughts and emotions, renewing the memories associated with discovering the connection, the love, and the devotion. This is called making a covenant with the Creator. Forgetfulness comes to a person all the time, yet he must always renew his feelings and return to that love. According to the example that is given to him from above, he must try to reach the same devotion from below.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/19/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Love From A Bird’s Eye View

There is nothing stronger than the connection between a man and a woman who have become close to one another. From childhood, each of us dreams of finding love, of being loved, and of being embraced by warmth on all sides. We look for this motherly tenderness all our life.

It makes no difference who you are and what you are and whether you are young or old, naive or experienced, married or single, the need for a relationship is common to all of us. The role of love and its influence is greater than anything else. Problems in the family are expressed at work, in our health, and in other aspects of our lives. There is nothing stronger than this connection, or the desire for it when it collapses. All our life revolves around love.

Let’s first draw away from the details and try to look at it from a distance, from a bird’s eye view.

By nature a person has to be part of an environment. Our global environment is the earth where we live and the physical conditions of the environment. All this enables us to grow and develop.

Our life begins from a tiny seed in the mother’s womb. Here in the safest place nature has prepared for man, he has total support. He doesn’t have to do anything and all the necessary systems operate on him.

After he is born, the baby reaches the loving arms of his parents and relatives who take care of him. Being helpless, he totally depends on them. Thus love continues its role from nature’s protection to the protection of his family.

Gradually he grows and learns to walk, as if wrapped in a coat of general concern that is based on the laws of the world and of human society. As he grows, he receives special warmhearted treatment.

As he grows, he needs an even stronger and more reliable environment. After all, he encounters new problems. It seems that he has become free and independent, as if he doesn’t need anyone, and doesn’t depend on anyone, but in fact it is not so. It isn’t by chance that our ancestors said that after a man leaves the home of his parents, he has to stick to his wife, which means to have a family so that the relations in it will be strong and enduring in order to take care of his offspring.

Nature has imprinted different patterns of behavior in different animals: some connect randomly and the female takes care of the offspring, while others raise their offspring together. At the same time, we humans are obliged to keep the connection between a couple for many years in order to raise independent children, at least for the first twenty years of their life until they have their own families.

Thus our connection and our relationships have to be long term by nature and we have to work on building the continuation of the motherly womb in the form of a crib, a kindergarten, school, a home, and a family.

We have to create all this for our children ourselves so we need a good, reliable, and versatile connection that will allow a couple and their relatives to complement one another. Then by uniting, they create the right environment for the new family and the babies that are born into it.
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From the program “A New Life” 7/22/14

A Roof That Shelters From Current and Rain

Rabash, Letter 36: The matter of S’chach (the covering of theSukkah) which is called shade is made of the waste of barn and winery. This is the matter that we refer to in our prayer in theSukkah, “to shelter from current and rain,” which means that a person’s faith saves him from all the damagers. It is because the matter of damagers is the matter of strange thoughts and strange ideas and faith is actually built on such waste materials and only that way is it a shelter from current and rain, since otherwise a person is drawn by the current of this world.

We have to find and attain this state each time when it doesn’t matter to our mind and heart, which means that the “waste of barn and winery” (barn refers to the heart and winery to the mind). These waste materials become so important to us that we raise them above reason by ascending above our thoughts and desires of in order to receive, we work above them and thus build the S’chach (roof) of the Sukkah which saves us from the currents. It seems that these currents come along as if to fail and to weaken us, but in fact they are sent only in order to force us to strengthen the roof of the Sukkah.

Question: Isn’t it dangerous to start behaving like a smart-aleck instead of feeling?

Answer: Of course you have to be smart, but if you examine others with your feelings (heart and your mind) you will surely come up with the wrong answer, because these tools are invalid. Before a person becomes a neutral judge, he cannot examine and assess anything. It isn’t by chance that “Themis” (Lady Justice) judges with her eyes blindfolded.

A judge should be neutral, which means above his own thoughts and desires. He should know how to manage himself or in other words how to be in vessels of bestowal. Only then is it possible to say that such a person can investigate and clarify what is going on, because a judge only has what his eyes can see.

The reason for all the failures in the world is actually because people think that they can be objective. But where can such an objective approach come from if the world is totally immersed in its ego.

Being in a strong group of ten we investigate, clarify things, and make decisions by discussing things among us and trying to ascend together, we begin to look at different phenomena through the prism of the group of ten. This is serious research, although each of us is not yet corrected. But trying to see things through the group of ten helps us advance and brings us closer to the right answer.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/14, Writings of Rabash

The Labyrinths Of Understanding

Question: Getting closer to others, I ask the Creator to help me think about them. He helps me, and here we are in a single motion, a closed triangle. In what form do I ask the Creator to think of others? How can I form this request?

Answer: Your concern for others should show you how to form this address. How can you help others? With what good qualities?

We hug and support each other, but internally we reflect that we have nothing to give each other. We see that the words of encouragement that we tell one another do not help. Mutual help does not help either. Festive meals and all kinds of events also do not give anything. To be honest, everything is useless.

It only gives us the opportunity to give up on our own strength so that we feel the need of the Creator, and when I feel the need for Him precisely because of my own weakness, confusion, bewilderment, then I begin finally to realize that I am a created being, and He is the Creator.

Only then does an urgent request, a demand, to Him arise in me like in a small child who demands something from his parents. This condition is called “My sons have defeated Me,” because the correct request, the correct demand, pleases the Creator, giving Him pleasure.

Thus, He is manifested in us. Therefore, the correct interaction between us should lead us to the need to work with the highest power of nature.
[145612]
From the Convention in St. Petersburg “Day One” 9/19/14, Workshop 1

From A Desire To A Thought

Question: We have been talking about the point in the heart for many years. Now we have begun to speak about the point in the mind, what is it?

Answer: The point in the heart and the mental point are two points or two attributes by which I feel, measure, and examine my state, myintention.

The desire exists in a form of a point and the thought is always with the desire. When I feel something in my desire, a thought that connects my current state with the state I want to achieve appears naturally. The thought is born in the gap between what I desire and what I feel.

Thus, the greater the distance between the desired state and the initial state, the more active our thought becomes. If we give a person everything, he doesn’t only lose his desire, but his thoughts also cease to work and he becomes numb.

A thought appears only when a feeling of emptiness appears in the desire, when we lack something. Our thoughts are a derivative of the desire. The desire is the initial phase and the thought is secondary. These two categories have to exist in every person and we have to develop them simultaneously in order to reach our goal.

We picture the goal as a clear state of the group. The point is that the spiritual goal is an unclear, vague concept. We have to imagine it in the material form of the spiritual state, which is the full mutual connection between us when we are all united, mutually caring about one another constantly, when the upper force flows among us and fills, connects, and ties us together.

In other words, the Creator fills the network of the desires, our mutual fear, that we have created. Then we can call this state spiritual.

We have to first picture the state we are in and the state we want to reach. After we feel it clearly, we picture the gap between them in the form of an infinite thought: “How do we attain the desired state.”

Thus we act from a desire to a thought, from a thought to a prayer, to a demand, and to its fulfillment.
[145615]
From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day One” 9/19/14, Workshop 1

The Signs Of High Quality Work

Question: Do we have to increase the number of friends who actively participate in this system when we transcend to a new qualitative level of the connections between us?

Answer: No. What is most important is to actually improve the quality of our work to maximum incorporation, unity, and understanding of each other and each one’s maximal control as to how strongly he is connected to others.

I have to feel the inner vibes of each one in order to ensure their successes and their basic corporeal well being. I have to worry about them, which means to worry about them on all levels and to feel to what extent we are one body. The most important thing is for me to lose myself among them. If this concerns me, it means that positive changes are already taking place inside me.
[145462]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/08/14, Shamati #5

Resonating With The General System

Question: On the one hand, it says that I am glad when the wicked are revealed in me and that it is a good sign. On the other hand, if we see the problems that are revealed, it is an indication of our flaws and defects.

How does this dualism go together? Are the problems that we see a sign of good or bad work, or should the assessment of our work be different?

Answer: It is impossible to answer this question unequivocally.

The point is that we are in a big system and cannot say definitely that if I act properly, everything will be alright and nothing will happen to me. On the contrary, when we act properly, we prepare ourselves for advancing in some way.

Our advancement is along three lines: the left line, the right line, and the middle line. The middle line doesn’t exist, and we actually choose it by the maximal and optimal integration of the left and the right lines. Thus, no matter what we are given from above, we must accept it as the right action from above.

It is because the system always responds in the most optimal manner toward its next state. However, it takes into account only our general state and not anyone’s individual state, neither yours nor mine.

Therefore, you cannot say that if you behaved properly,then your next step will be smooth. Why do you suddenly encounter such problems? However, whom else should they be sent to but you since you are ready for them. You are so healthy and so ready, and so ten more tons are loaded on you. Beside you, there is a small, weak egoist. So, what can be done with him?

This is the reason that we must advance with the intention external to me for the Creator, and ignore what I am given, thanking equally for the goodness and for the evil no matter what state we are in. This should be our lighthouse.

We shouldn’t think that if we encounter a serious problem it means that we haven’t acted properly. It can be the opposite that, as a result of behaving properly and being so serious and responsible, this mountain now has fallen on you, since you are the one who can carry it forward.

We shouldn’t relate to what we do and what we receive in return in a one-sided manner. We see this in all the examples in the Torah. It is because we constantly are working toward correction.

The best advice that Kabbalists give us is to close our eyes and advance by blessing everything. Whatever happens to you at any given moment is given to you by the general system for your optimal advancement. You should try to resonate with it.
[145469]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/14, Shamati #5

A Drive For Correction Of The Network

Question: Our sick friend becomes a trigger so that we will unite in a connected network of webs. What can become a trigger like this in everyday life when we are immersed in learning and even in active dissemination, this all gradually becomes routine?

Answer: We must be connected between us all the time and understand that it is specifically through this that we feel the web of connection. Our points that are found in the connections of this system are compulsory only so that we can nullify ourselves for the sake of the entire network of webs, for the sake of our unity.

This is because the web is the characteristic of bestowal, and the connections (the small intersections) we are in are our egoistic spheres. So, all of the work is directed outside of us, which means that it is realized in the webs themselves.

How can we awaken ourselves? As a general rule, the most fruitful and useful means isdissemination. You then invite uncorrected and completely new desires upon yourself and try to work for their sake.

Imagine that when you are in these webs, you are linked with a few more “links” that are working incorrectly, swallowing energy, without giving it to others, are in confused states. You try to take their desires and intentions, and somehow adjust, correct, and help them approach the awareness of their mission.

With this, you are carrying out useful work for the entire system. Through your participation, you apparently balance the incorrect work of the rest of the parts and create additional links between you and between those people whom you connected to yourself.

So, I always say that our dissemination is the greatest drive and incentive for correction of the network.
[145563]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/14, Shamati #5

The Primary Concern

Question: Can I assume that the unity of our total awe, our commonfears, into one single fear creates the Creator among us?

Answer: Our fears—even better to say, anxiety—does not create the Creator, but the precondition for His revelation.

Fear is what we call concern for our material existence, but anxiety is a condition that is above our physical life, when I am in awe as to whether I will have an opportunity to exist in the property of bestowal. My concern is not even about that because it is also somewhat egoistic, but so that my awe serves as an opportunity for the Light to pass through me to others, as through the transfer channel.

The concern as to whether I can be a conduit for the Light to all the rest of the world is the correct awe. If a person imagines everything all the time in this way, then he is already close to a good state, connecting with others in one intention. Then, we have an ability to become a wide channel for passing the Light, a vessel in which we will feel the Creator.

Therefore, I am constantly in awe as to whether I will be able to pass through myself all that good, all that correction, which the Creator wants to produce in the whole of humanity. I want to be just a means for the movement of forces for correcting others.
[145618]
From the Convention in St. Petersburg “Day One” 9/19/14, Workshop 1

Ego That Is Squeezed Out Like Lemon Juice

A few years ago, if you were to hear from me about the evil of the ego, you would think that I was simply preaching morality to you. Now that a connection has been created between us, this feeling of dependence upon your ego has been handed over to you. Soon, you will begin to feel that it is really tiresome for you to be a slave of Pharaoh and to serve him.

After this, the prophecies and movements will begin as they did with Moses, “Come to Pharaoh,” and everything will continue to happen just like in the story. You will feel how Pharaoh puts pressure on the people of Israel, loading more and more work on them. The ego brings evil to you; life will go on without benefit. All of the fruits of your work will go to Pharaoh. Everything will be swallowed up by him, and as much as you try to correct something nothing will come of it for you.

In principle, you would want a little revitalization to make your soul happy, but nothing works. A little later, the crisis will appear everywhere, even in America and in Europe. However, it is possible that it won’t come to such a state. Instead, you will do all scrutiny in emotion and intellect, and not in coarse material. The problem is that people don’t hear the warnings.

It is possible to depart from the ego without waiting for the plagues of Egypt by developing the heart and mind. But in any case, this takes time, and it is not just a few waves that will pass over you because it is impossible to overcome the ego through one wave. One big wave would drown you so it is divided into several small waves.

Here, patience is required, but it means that you have to arm yourself with all the means at your disposal: connection with friends, with the teacher, along with the study and dissemination. Then, it becomes possible to hasten time very greatly.

Question: It is terrible to discover that someone always is cheating you and striking you, and you don’t even feel that this ego is living in you as a part of yourself. Why don’t they let us see it so that we can ask to be free of it?

Answer: You could ask, but this wouldn’t help you because this would be an egoistic request. You want to see the wretch who deceives you all of your life and destroy him? However, this will work only when you ask for this in order to reach the Creator. Then, you will be shown this wretch, otherwise, no.

Moses, the “point in the heart,” must come to Pharaoh and close accounts with him. Otherwise, you are acting for the sake of your own benefit because you want to be released from difficult work, from whomever is deceiving you.

A substantial reaction is required as in a chemical experiment that makes it possible to examine the composition that is filtered and separated it into several components. If you want to discover and see the truth in Egypt, it is possible only if you try to become a single whole with the group. Then, you will begin to feel what it means to go againstPharaoh. While still in Egypt, a reaction or mechanism will appear within you that will make it possible to differentiate and clarify where Pharaoh is and where is that which is above him.

This is because you never work directly regarding the Creator. In Egypt, this is not possible at all. So, you work in relation to the group, which is called the “people of Israel.” Begin to connect all of your friends in Egypt, which is, today, what all of this world is called, and then you will see where the power of Klipa is and where the Kedusha is, where Pharaoh is and where he isn’t.

Pharaoh is everything that disturbs unity. So, you will discover him more and more until the ten plagues of Egypt, and all of these plagues are relevant to the increasing connection. Ultimately, you will understand that you must leave Egypt.

However, this is possible only through such a connection where you squeeze all of the Pharaoh out of the group like lemon juice. All of the ego will ooze out, and only the group will remain. Then, this group must be filled with the power of bestowal, something that is impossible to do in Egypt, and so it departs from there.

All of the work is done only on the connection. It is impossible to work directly against Pharaoh. You can only summon blows upon him through a connection with the friends. The ten plagues correspond to the ten Sefirot. By rising higher and higher, from Sefira toSefira, to a greater and greater intensity of connection, you summon the Upper Light to act and influence Pharaoh and filter the ego.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/14, “Sukkot”