Everything Is Achieved By Prayer

Question: What desires are there in spirituality besides the desires to connect with other people?

Answer: None. We come from the broken vessel of Adam, and therefore we only need to unite with each other. There is no need to philosophize. I do not know how I need to connect, with whom, by what properties, etc. I only have to expose myself to the influence of the upper Light.

I cannot be smarter than the upper Light, but can only cause its impact so that it corrects me. I cannot be above the point of my correction, and so I only ask. Everything is achieved only by prayer.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 5/13/18

The Influence Of Intention On The Earth’s Ecology

Question: Does a person’s intention to inflict harm on another affect the inanimate and vegetative levels of nature? Kabbalah says that destructive hurricanes and other natural disasters are a manifestation of our actions toward each other. How we should understand this?

Answer: Since all nature is integral and completely interconnected, our impact on any of its parts affects all other parts. The higher the level of nature that we influence, for example, people, the more it affects all the lower levels: animals, vegetation, and the inanimate.

In contrast, if we exhibit some attitude only toward inanimate nature, it has a lesser impact on vegetative nature, an even lesser one on animate nature, and still less on humans.

It turns out that my bad attitude toward another person permeates the entire pyramid. This is the source of ecological problems and of everything else. We ourselves cause hurricanes, natural disasters, and other problems.

Previously, we were unable to affect anything with our intentions, but everything changed at the beginning of the last century. Look at what we did during the 20th century! Kabbalists say this is because humanity entered a completely new state.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the world population was two billion people, and this is about as much as the planet can sustain. Today, it has grown to eight billion. This suggests that over the past 100 years, we have really driven our system out of balance.

Question: Does this mean that two billion people cannot endure the current level of egoism and therefore there has to be eight billion?

Answer: If we were developing correctly, we would not need eight billion people.
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From the Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 03/25/18

Prayer To The Right Address

Prayer is my last action in relation to the Creator. In response to the prayer, He will make a correction. That is why everything ends with prayer. Before it, we need to prepare, to find out exactly what I am asking for, in what way, and for whose sake.

Prayer includes all the requests that the creature raises to the Creator. Of course, this does not happen all at once. It is not expressed in any words or sentences, but is based on clarifications, one after another, and requests for help until we come to the perfect prayer.

The Creator is the full HaVaYaH that exists in the world of infinity and contains absolutely everything. Therefore, if we want to get something from there, we must make a precise request, just as in a computer: exactly what address to go to, what password and command to use, etc.

This request then passes through all the stages and enters Malchut of the world of infinity where there are endless possibilities. All the Kelim and all the Lights are there from the beginning, as it is written, “the end of the action lies in the initial thought.” That is, the completely corrected state exists there in all its splendor.

If we work correctly, we join this system. Based on our request, we find the right place in it and extract what we need from this general “memory” where desires and Light already exist in unity. This influences us and promotes us to the state we requested in our prayer.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/18, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Letter 56”

A Prayer For The Society

The only correct prayer is a prayer for the society, meaning for the ten, while the state of a prayer for myself should be crossed out within my “I.”

A person who raises a prayer for his ten becomes its representative and is the first one to be awarded leading the merging with theCreator.

It is precisely the one who, through his ten, can appeal to the Creator that is called a creation, an individual, a human being. The rest of the nine people represent a matrix through which he appeals to the Creator.

The acceleration of spiritual advancement boils down to enlarging the society that can become closer to the prayer. It means that when you raise an appeal, you can take the biggest desires from this society and direct them toward fulfillment, toward the common merging. This can be accomplished through dissemination and education.
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From the Convention In Moscow, Day One 5/2/16, Lesson 3

The Common Work Between The Person And The Creator

Our work is divided into two parts: clarification and correction. Both the clarification and correction are done by the Light that reforms, but no operation, neither the clarification nor the correction, can be carried out without our demand.

The demand is called prayer, the elevation of MAN, desire. The desire is required so that the Light will influence and implement precisely what we ask for, in other words, that the creature discovers a greater and greater desire to resemble theCreator, to rise level after level.

With the help of more and more precise clarification of all the details, a person can bring himself to accommodation, meaning an even greater closeness to the Creator. So, if there were no changes at every moment within the person, he wouldn’t turn in the right direction with the right request, so he wouldn’t get a response, an answer, a discovery, and a change; that is how it is throughout life.

If his state is not changed, he is found on the animate level. Only if changes happen in him as a result of the previous states in which it was clear to him that he raised MAN (a prayer), is he then called an Adam (man). After all, he builds himself with the help of the Light that Reforms, with the help of the Torah. This is, as it is written, “Torah was not given except to those who eat the manna” (Midrash Tanhuma, BeShalach, section 20).

So, through common effort with the help of the Arvut (mutual guarantee), responsibility and mutual support, we constantly need to help everyone, not just ourselves, and we always must be concerned that the entire world group will be raising MAN, in prayer, with a feeling of the need and the imperative for the right direction and the right form.

To turn correctly, many conditions must be met simultaneously. It is written, “…none might enter within the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth” (Esther 4:2); and we need to precede the request with a blessing, for this opens the person and organizes him correctly toward the upper Light, toward the higher level. It is up to him to arrange his relationships with the group so that his request will be adjusted to the higher level, to what the King is ready to hear from him.

The prayer must go out from the depths of the heart, must rise to be a general prayer for all, full of praise, thanksgiving, and happiness. For any bottleneck and sorrow there must be joy because this unique situation was given to him from above, and he wants to connect even more with the Creator, and all of this is not for his personal benefit, but to be concerned for the collective soul and to make the Creator happy.

Ultimately, our work is concentrated on raising a prayer, MAN, and we prepare the prayer through all the previous processes, through the changes in the human characteristics, beginning from Adam to Abraham. After that, the Avot (Fathers) are awakened in him, even though he doesn’t feel this and, after that, reaches a particular feeling of exile. All of this is so that, ultimately, he will get the method of correction and will know how to turn toward the Creator.

Each time his appeal has to be more precise, right on the same wavelength that the upper one is ready to absorb. All of the conditions are always arranged according to a person’s level; he is required only to perform work he is capable of. It is according to the internal and external conditions that he gets—group, teacher, books and study—that the person is ready to design the right demand. And, in response to the right demand, theMAD (Male waters) comes. If he raises a deficiency, then he gets power from above,Mayin Duchrin (MAD), overcoming clothed in water. That is how the person acquires the power with whose help he will be able to realize himself.

Precisely according to his previous request, according to the raising of MAN, in response, the person receives an answer (MAD), and he knows exactly what to do with it. So, it is written, “…his seed is blessed” (Psalms 37:26). That is how the person advances from the realization of the MAD to clarify an additional, greater deficiency, and he searches for new opportunities to bestow to the Creator, meaning to make it possible for the Creator to bestow to the creatures.

So, the person again searches for how to think about the creatures and not about himself and how to think about the Creator not about himself and about the creatures. That is how he organizes the next MAN.

Every time, he will understand, feel, and adjust himself more and more to the higher form. The person and the Creator become partners, and they work together to benefit the souls. The person asks for their sake, and the Creator implements his request. The request, the deficiency, comes from the side of the person, and the fulfillment comes for all of the souls from the side of the Creator.

Therefore, the person adheres to the Creator with his point in the heart, thanks to their common work. After all, all of the intentions of both of them are directed only toward the benefit of one soul that they see as a place for common concern, connection, and love. All of this is revealed within all of the souls.

So, it seems that a man, the Creator and Divinity, the entire community of souls are found in adhesion with each other.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/7/14, Writing of Rabash

Everything Is Closed In One Circle

Question: What is the unity of friends that Rabash talks about?

Answer: Unity is when we clarify the teacher’s advice among us and examine it according to the sources in order to grow stronger and then to fulfill them together when we are equally connected. We try to make the connection between us into a mutual force field in which everyone is equally connected and focused in the right direction when everyone helps one another in mutual guarantee in order to reveal the attribute of bestowal among us, the force of bestowal that operates all of reality and is external to us.

We ascend from below wishing to establish this attribute by our desires, our vessels. We want this attribute to be dressed in us and to be revealed in the vessel according to the equivalence of form. All this happens between us. This is how we want to attain all the levels of our general soul, which we now build between us.

Then we will have to attach all of humanity to this unity so that our small circle would grow bigger from internality to externality. We will discover all the levels of the desire in it—0, 1, 2, 3, 4— and all the Lights—Nefesh, Ruach, Haya, Yechida—all the 125 levels that determine the intensity of the connection between us if we attach all the other shattered parts.

It is a very clear picture. Everything is closed in one small circle, in its central point.

Comment: The picture is clear, but I cannot fulfill this connection with the friends.

Answer: Of course you can’t because you have to add the Creator to the connection. He is the one who stands in your way and doesn’t let you connect. You are used to doing everything by yourself in our world. You depend on your mind and your feelings, on your energy and your power, but in spirituality you cannot do anything but discover a deficiency and aim it at the One who performs everything, at the operating force.

Don’t forget that! Have you ever thought of connecting to a group of egoists and attaining everything? This is called “the seat of the scornful,” and this is clearly no way of attaining anything.

You sit and cry that nothing works out, which means that you discover that you cannot do the work and that you need a partner. It is through the group and the teacher that you feel the need for a partner that has to help you. Then your prayer will solve the problem.

All you need to do is to reach the right request. This has to do be a prayer of many in which everyone connects to the same goal and understand that only the Creator can fulfill it; only the Light corrects the vessels, which means that only the Light connects them. If there is the right demand ( more or less), it is fulfilled.

The factor of time operates here as many pennies add up to a big account. In the mean time, we have to go through additional phases of scrutiny and clear up different concepts, and then it will happen.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/26/14

What A Pleasure It Is To Delight Others!

Our advancement along the spiritual path is divided into two phases. During the first phase, a person cannot and is unable to connect himself to the Creator, and the Light doesn’t have much influence on him. In the second phase, he begins to feel that there is a certain connection, a certain relation to the Creator, thanks to the influence of the Light.

He doesn’t really understand where it comes from, but he begins to notice it. It is just like in ordinary life when you don’t notice a certain person and all of a suddenly he becomes important to you and you begin to think about him and take him into account. The same thing happens with the Creator. A person begins to assess the states he is in, to check and examine whether there is any connection with the Creator, if it will delight Him, if He will enjoy it, and if He will respond to it.

Just like in any other process of development, the change is the result of the influence of the Light that Reforms. A person begins to pay attention to whether he relates to the Creator in any way in his actions and thoughts, how the Creator relates to him, and whether He is happy and enjoys it.

Here the image that he has of the Creator is important: Does he identify the Creator with the attribute of love and bestowal that is revealed in the public, in the people?

Baal HaSulam, Shamati #19: Also, one needs to conduct oneself with the will to receive and say to it, “I have already decided that I do not want to receive any pleasure because you want to enjoy. This is because with your desire I am forced to be separated from the Creator, since disparity of form causes separation and distance from the Creator.”

This determines what side a person is on. The more important it is to him that the Creator receives benefit, the less he notices his own benefit and the more personal pleasure he receives by delighting the Creator. This becomes the most important benefit for him.
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From 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/14, Shamati #19

At The Turning Point

Shamati #1 “There is None Else Beside Him”: Rather, for those people who truly want to draw near the Creator, and so they will not settle for little, meaning remain as senseless children… And only if that person has a true desire…

Is it possible for a person to have a true desire? I must feel inside, within my belly, within my heart, and examine with my mind how much at each and every moment in life I am alert to maintaining myself for my benefit. The main thing for me is not to harm anyone so that no one will harm me. I am only concerned about how to defend myself from all the evil that surrounds me, from all the dangers and bad influences from all sides.

If I feel that I am so focused on protecting myself, I will understand that this holds my entire attention, and even my desire to discover the Creator is derived from the same Kli, from the same intention to further improve my situation. However, I am not prepared to be released from my beastly nature of self-defense.

Here, I make a decision that I must get away from it, simply to tear myself from this concern for self-preservation, and all of this depends solely on this: How much does the importance of the Creator become greater than my own self-importance? When a desire, a decision, an imperative, like this ripens and awakens in me, I will begin to hate “my body,” meaning the ego that obligates me to be concerned about my own self-preservation all the time, and then a desire, a prayer, a scream, a request, awakens within me for the Creator to change what has been created for me, and I will begin to be concerned about the greatness of the Creator—about “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”—more than myself, and I will see myself only as a means for bestowing to others.

I must reach such an inner explosion that I will be ready to do anything. This is a critical point where I decide that I would rather kill myself than live a life like this if I won’t be able to be concerned about others more than about myself. I perceive my egoistic, beastly state as being so despicable that I simply must change it.

Those of us who have not yet passed through it are very close to this turning point, and we must pay special attention to it.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/29/14, Shamati #1

True Prayer

Baal HaSulam, Sages Fruit, Article “Wrong Time to Gather the Herd”: It’s prohibited to separate oneself from the society and ask for oneself, even for the sake of pleasing the Creator.

One should address the Creator, having the purest thoughts and ideal desires that are not for one’s own sake, but for the sake of others or for His sake. But if one prays to the Creator on one’s own, alone, the prayer won’t rise to Him. Rather, it will stay with the person who prays.

We can continue screaming for a thousand years, but it won’t help us at all. The spiritual system doesn’t hear solitary requests. A single person is unable to raise the desire to be connected with others, the desire that elicits the correction from Above. This demand has to be raised together with other similar desires, as part of a common desire to unite. Then the Light that fulfilled these desires before the shattering took place, when all desires were one whole, will automatically descend.

Praying for the entire society is the only possible type of prayer. Those who are detached from their surroundings as well as those who pray only for their own sake harm and destroy their souls. The Light won’t respond to such an appeal. It is said: The Creator says to all proud men: “We cannot dwell in the same abode you and I.”

It’s impossible to get out of one’s surroundings if one doesn’t wear the vestments of pride. One’s separation from the group automatically implies that one becomes more selfish. Detachment from the group is a result of various spiritual “moves,” not physical ones. No matter how justified one’s separation looks, it always is an outcome of one’s increased pride, wickedness, and egoism.

Praying alone makes one involuntarily abandon one’s community, thus ruining one’s soul, an aspiration towards the Creator. A sensation that one’s soul is implanted into a corrected community, in each of our friends not as a discrete part, but as an inseparable element of the whole system signifies a complete correction of the body (the general desire).

The category “we” becomes the only one that really exists. The sensation of “I-ness” vanishes since it is given to us only to make us understand that we are placed outside of the spiritual ladder.

“I-ness” exists only in this world. The lowest spiritual degree, as well as all other 125 spiritual steps, is based solely on “we” and the sensation of “we” becomes higher with each next step. The “I” disappears at the level of this world that is called the imaginary world since it exists only in our shattered desires.

Spirituality is felt only in the “we.” This notion includes me, you, him, and other friends connected together. It is quite a weak spiritual level of the world of Assiya at which clarifications and shatterings still occur. The world of Yetzira is nothing like that. There, in the world of Yetzira everything is truly connected into one whole. The world of Beria is a preparatory link for attaining a complete correction in the world of Atzilut.

This explains why we should never forget that spirituality can be felt only through the connection among us. It is said, the minimal Kli (vessel) is comprised of two. Ten people constitute an ideal structure. This is stated in The Zohar and Rabash’s articles.

For thousands of years, humanity did not have such wonderful conditions! We have to take advantage of our developmental stage and implement the transition from “I” to “we” as efficiently as possible.
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From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day Two” 9/20/14, Lesson 4

Networking On Correction

Question: If we connect in caring for a friend’s healing, the outcome will be positive and then we will feel proud of that. It turns out that it would be an egoistic receiving of reward.

Answer: It makes no difference. We must look at things realistically since the egoistic awakening and the reward are also necessary. We need to be sure that we are a force. We are not on the level of working without feedback, yet when the mere effort or working for the Creator without a reward is the reward for us.

At the moment, we cannot even do that and don’t feel the system on a level that allows us to work in a void. I operate and all my efforts disappear, while I must feel bestowal and certain limitations. Therefore, we need feedback.

Question: How can we improve the quality of our concern for our sick friend?

Answer: First of all, the concern we feel for him should teach us to be together in one thought, on one level. At the same time, we must hope that we will learn to add ourintention to this thought, that we unite thanks to our concern and use this connection on the next level in order to think about the Creator and to establish the necessary conditions for His revelation. The Creator is not revealed in each of us, but in the connection between us.

Thus, when worrying about a sick friend, each one should feel not his own personal concern for him and how we should spur each one to feel that, but how we all are mutually connected. We want to feel the network of connections among us and the revelation of our concern for a friend in it. This is the only thing we care about since our networking is working on the correction.

The main thing for us is to feel the connection since it is our only collective soul in which the Creator later will be revealed. Thus, we move on to the next level, to the system that is external to us, and begin to feel the cobweb of the actual connection, not ourselves and our egoistic desires that are in its meeting points and its connection.

If we begin to work this way, we begin to affect the whole system. By reviving the cobweb of the connections between us, like the web system on the Internet, we begin to prepare it for the revelation of the Creator because the force that goes through the system that ties, revives, regulates, and manages everything is called the Creator.

When we begin to tune into this system of mutual connections, we will be able to feel the Internet web system that was created by people. Our connection will begin to affect it according to the law of equivalence of form and people all over the world suddenly will begin to wake up.

Can you imagine how everything will change? Just as a person’s thoughts constantly change, so will the mechanical, electric system of the mutual connections between people begin to change. The general egoistic human brain—the mutual connection that includes everything that is revealed today in the Internet web system—will begin to change in form thanks to the fact that we are becoming active parts in our spiritual system.

People all over the world suddenly will feel the new current that the system of the relations between them has entered: a new force, new thoughts, and a new moral state. They will feel it since the spiritual system will affect the lower web system like a root affects the branch. Therefore, we soon will discover very interesting options.

However, going back to the question about the sick friend, it is important that we understand that he is the factor that spurs us to collective bestowal unto the whole system so that we will be able to connect and bestow unto the Creator a form of bestowal that He expects of us so much.

We really want our friend to be with us constantly and to recover and return to the group. We constantly must think about it seriously together. The Creator provides us with a reason from above so that we will connect and focus all our thoughts and actions on our unity and eventually for the sake of the Creator.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/14, Writing of Rabash

I Desire, The Light Corrects

Question: It is said in Shamati #5 that the properties of Lishma (for the sake of bestowal to others and to the Creator) are awakened from Above. If this property appears in us “on its own,” without our participation, then why do we need to apply efforts, i.e., try to awaken this property from below?

Answer: The thing is that without our participation, no changes will happen to our egoistic, receiving nature. We won’t start caring for others, nor will we orient ourselves to serve them.

This mission is impossible in this material world. Any system, even a purely mechanical one, requires some energy to perform work. It always loses a certain amount of energy.

The only exceptions to this rule are low-temperature, superconducting systems in which upon certain conditions there appears a property that doesn’t allow the system to consume energy for its own sake, but makes it give the energy away. This example sheds some light on what “acting for the sake of others” means.

We are constructed in a way that we always have to gain something. Without this feeling, we cannot do anything at all. That’s why changing our nature to its opposite, bestowal, seems unfeasible and incredible to us.

We should learn how to feel other’s desires and how to fulfill them. We have to regard ourselves as a remedy to fill others. It’s not natural for this world, nor does it exist at the inanimate, vegetative, animate, or speaking levels.

That’s why Baal HaSulam raises a question about how to acquire the property for the sake of the Creator, i.e., how can we start caring for absolute strangers with whom we have nothing in common and to whom we don’t have the slightest feelings that even remotely remind us, let’s say, of the relationship between a mother and a child. This situation implies an absolutely clear understanding that we are acting without any feasible possibility to get anything in return.

Unless we acknowledge that our nature is a hundred percent egoistic, we won’t ever understand how it is possible to go through such an inversion. A human brain is incapable of comprehending how this kind of inversion can take place in this material world.

Anything that happens to us teaches us that our work that we conduct on ourselves and things that we are trying to achieve in the group is always done solely for the sake of getting a reward. It can be a “restitution” that compensates us for only 1% of our efforts; the other 99% of our activities we do for the sake of others. Still, anything we ever do is done only because of this 1%.

For example, many steam and mechanical engines have efficiency not higher than 3-5%, but they were created specifically to perform with this level of efficiency. That’s why for us 1% has a huge significance. All we do is just for this 1%. If not for this 1%, we won’t be able to give 99% to others.

The question is: Do we really work to get 1% and for this kind of reward we involuntarily give away 99%? Let’s say, I have a boss who exploits me and pays me the minimum wage, but this wage somehow supports my existence. On the contrary, the work I do for my boss equals 99%, and I get back only 1% even though I don’t approve of this state of affairs. However, I won’t be able to exist without this 1%. If I don’t understand this “plan,” I won’t be able to work for my boss at all.

If we explore ourselves deeply enough, we’ll see that in order to achieve complete bestowal without receiving anything for our own sake, we are unable to make a single move, our body just won’t let us! Therefore, it’s possible to come to a state of absolute bestowal only under a special influence from Above.

Those who are subject to this kind of impact go through the process of internal inversion and relate to themselves in a totally different way. That’s why it is said: “Try and see how beautiful the Creator is” since the property of complete bestowal “outside ourselves” is a quality of the Creator.

If it is so, then we just have to understand why we should apply all kinds of efforts, follow numerous tips, try to reach the property of complete bestowal even if we know that no advice can ever help us to re-arrange ourselves unless the upper force descends and corrects us, thus giving us a chance to work for the sake of others.

In this case, why should we keep trying? The thing is that each one of us has a responsibility to apply maximal efforts and strive to correct  ourselves using any remedies that are available to us. Exertions that we make are called “a prayer.” In other words, a prayer is a demonstration of our intentions and desires. A prayer is a manifestation of what in fact we are aspiring to.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/14, Shamati #5

Prayer As A Manifestation Of Human Desires

It seems to us that a prayer is a canonized appeal to a “human-like” object. However, in this world, we understand the notion of prayer incorrectly. In fact, at any given moment, whatever we do, we always pray, meaning we express our desires. The expression of our desires is called a prayer.

Kabbalah is a system of relationships with the upper force that began at the time of Adam. It is the most ancient wisdom in the world that began 5,775 years ago; a human by the name of Adam initiated the relationships with the upper level of nature that is now called the Creator because it stands for the system that created us. This explains why the most basic and correct definitions should be borrowed from the wisdom of Kabbalah.

Adam called the manifestation of human desires a prayer because our constantly changing desires modify the system we live in. The system reacts to our prayers directly since we act within its boundaries. So, we constantly pray, thus the system continuously changes, thereby impacting us.

That’s why we have to correctly direct our desires, concentrate on the system we exist in, thus shaping joint intentions and promoting our internal advancement so that we can influence the system purposefully instead of chaotically impacting it by having diverse desires. For that, we unite in groups and encourage each other, thereby approaching certain intentions and desires, and defining a vision of our future. Our focused exertions affect the system greatly; therefore, it begins reacting to our influence very sensibly.

When we interact with each other, we start feeling a great need for the property of bestowal and love, the quality of integrality and mutual aid. When we effectively and strongly influence the system, it begins influencing us. This “feedback” can dramatically modify us even if we don’t have a desire to change deep inside us.

Because we are egoists, we have only one type of desire. That’s why we are unable to demand from the system that it change our desires and intentions. No matter what, we will always bring up our egoistic incentives. However, the system is built in a way that even if our request is not sincere, it still reacts to our demands correctly. This is because the shattering, the inversion from altruism to egoism, progressed from top to bottom. That’s why when we raise our requests from the bottom up, the system corrects them.

When we are together with the group, we unite; thus, each of us receives a desire to move correctly inside the system. When we impact the system by our willingness to change and rise above our egoistic nature, it responds to us.

Most important is to remember that we are constantly under the system’s influence. Even if we are not yet a corrected element of the system but we manage to stick together in a group and continue our efforts to self-correct, then we influence the entire system in a good way. In return, the system modifies us by its reciprocal influence. By doing so, the system corrects, revives, and rectifies itself.

This explains why everything depends on our prayer, meaning on our having good aspirations even though they are still very small, weak, and primitive. Our aspirations are being calculated within the system. It is a constant cumulative process in which all sorts of reciprocal corrections take place.

It’s essential not to cool down when working in the group. We should support each other, mutually enhance our individual desires, and take advantage of our egoistic properties such as jealousy, envy, and competition. We should use these features to reach the desirable results from others, particularly from our tens, thereby multiplying our desire to improve by dozens of times.

Every friend, becoming ten times greater, will tell the others about their new increased desires. Then, each one of our friends borrows a hundred times more from others, and so on and so forth. It means that when we are in a circle, there are no limitations in strengthening our desires to change.

Moreover, when one falls, others rise. This counterbalance keeps us on a constant move to correction. In this case, we truly can raise our huge desires to the system, urge it to change us and ask it to influence us by reciprocal reaction, the so-called Ohr Makif, the Returning Light, that gradually corrects us.

A self-tuning, self-correcting spiritual system, as any other type of a search engine, constantly explores how to better react to us, absorb us, adapt us to it so that we completely correct and turn into its useful elements. This is how it is built.

The Study of the Ten Sefirot teaches us that the system of the upper worlds consists of 125 levels: five worlds each of which includes five discrete multifunctional blocks(Partzufim), and  each block in turn consisting of five sub-levels (Sefirot). It is a very flexible system that quickly adapts to our demands. When we strive to coordinate with it through our desires and become similar to it, rise to its highest levels and enter a state of absolute homeostasis, connected with it, then the system immediately reacts to our desires and corrects us in a certain way so that we turn into its active, useful, and internal components.

Then we begin controlling the system due to the fact that previously we were its corrupt elements, whereas at this point we approach a state of correction. This is an extraordinary, miraculous property: If an uncorrected particle strives to self-correct, it influences the entire system much stronger than its already corrected elements.

Due to the fact that we are positioned between the system’s corrupt and corrected layers, we have a chance to sense, understand, analyze, and synthesize the properties and possibilities that are a full degree higher than the mechanistic system itself. Our egoistic “I” that we strive to alter helps us become a totally different entity and rise to a new level in the structure of the higher force that created the entire system. I rise above the system and become similar to the property of bestowal and love, to the authentic quality of everything there is, to the Creator.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/14, Shamati #5

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 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.
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From the Convention in St. Petersburg “Day One” 9/19/14, Workshop 1

Benevolence Under The X-Ray

Question: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) is the most significant day of the year for the people of Israel. What is the spiritual meaning of this special day? How should we relate to it in order to correspond to its spiritual roots and to transfer our life to a new degree?

 Answer: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) is not simply a tradition. It reflects a special spiritual state in a person’s development. We shouldn’t look at this day separately, but as a part of the entire year’s cycle.

Upon the completion of a year, that being a cycle of internal changes, we evaluate everything that we went through, which is called “repentance.” Thus we decide that it is necessary to rise to a new degree, to begin the new year (Rosh Hashanah), cross to a new state, a higher, purer, more exalted one. So we crown the Creator, the force of bestowal and love, setting Him up to reign over us as the most sublime property.

This is when we begin to judge ourselves: are we truly in the property of bestowal? All our properties are divided into ten parts, ten Sefirot. And we are clarifying which desires in those ten parts can be corrected, and which cannot.

In essence, a person’s soul needs to be corrected. And a soul is all our desires, which are still corrupted and need correction.

 Question: What exactly needs to be corrected: one’s actions or the soul?

Answer: In our world, actions are performed with hands and feet, or through words. But the wisdom of Kabbalah explains that most important is a corrected intention, which is the true desire of a person.

Actions alone aren’t enough, because I can perform them simply out of habit. Then, it is actually more difficult for me not to do them than to do them. And these can be the actions that I otherwise would never have made in my life had I not been accustomed to them from childhood.

In this case, it is no longer fulfillment of a commandment but traditions instilled in childhood that are performed automatically. For someone it might be difficult to carry them out, but for someone else, it is difficult to not do them.

This is why we are not speaking about an action, but rather an intention. An action, after all, does not change: As we have been doing it, so we will continue. But in intention, in a person’s attitude towards the performed action, there is always change.

The key is a person’s attitude to those around him. After all, love for one’s neighbor as for oneself is the great law of the Torah. This is the point of view from which I need to check myself in order to see how much I am capable of loving my neighbor.

The upper force is a force of bestowal and love, and our goal is to become like it. This is why we need to reach the degree of man, Adam, which means similar to (Domeh) the Creator. But how can we check this? Where is that doctor who will irradiate me with an X-Ray and tell me exactly how similar I am to the Creator?

Such a doctor does not exist, so a person needs to check himself on his own. This kind of X-Ray machine requires a special Light, which checks us. This Light is called the Light that Reforms.

If I am studying the true Torah, namely the wisdom of Kabbalah, then thanks to it, I start to see the truth. I see how egoistic I am, what exactly is it in me that is bad, and what needs to be corrected, as if I shine an X-Ray on myself.

This is only visible to me and others may not notice it. And after I have seen myself on the X-Ray image, it becomes clear to me what needs to be corrected. The Torah arranges this image where I only see intentions, and only to the level of the depth which I am capable of correcting. Everything else I do not see, and it can remain until the next year.

Immediately after the onset of the new year, I find myself in these X-ray sessions, which are called ten days of repentance. I irradiate my heart, clarifying my intentions with respect to those around me in each action, and get back these images.

Kabbalah explains that Malchut ascends to Bina and compares herself to it. Malchut is our egoistic desire, which rises to Bina, the desire for bestowal, clarifying the extent to which it differs from it, how far we are from caring for our neighbors, from good relations, and how we are only thinking about our own benefit.

 Question: What is shown on these X-ray images?

Answer: This image is black-and-white. It shows how much white there is in you, that is, the intentions for the benefit of your neighbor. And the black color points to the intentions for your own benefit, which you can correct.

Thus, the scope of our work is revealed to us. This is personal work that is in store for each of us, but it is aimed at the commonality, at bestowal to all, and through them, to the Creator, which is from the love of the created beings, to love of the Creator. The Creator is a force, integrating everyone together, and not something that exists outside. It is written: “The Creator dwells among his people.”

Thus, if I strive to unite with everyone and want to turn into one whole with them, then I reveal the overall integral system that generalizes our unity, which is called the Creator. This is how it is revealed in our perception.

Therefore, during Yom Kippur we need to strive to love our neighbor as much as possible and wider, and even beyond the people of Israel, extending it to all mankind. This is the reason why during Yom Kippur it is customary to read the story about the prophet Jonah, whom the Creator instructed to lead the city of Nineveh, which symbolizes the world, to correction.
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From the TV Show “The New Life” #438. 9/30/2014

Point Of No Return

We have to apply maximum effort to reach the goal we aspire to and in doing so get prove that we are unable to reach it. Then, we have to check if we are going in the right direction and whether we can possibly ever get the chance to attain it; then by employing our intellect and sensations we will realize that we will never be able to achieve this goal on our own and need the Creator’s assistance.

We should accept the fact that only the Creator is able to give our entry into the spiritual world, to realize our spiritual birth, to transition us from our mother’s womb where we are separated to the state of connectedness. During birth, we pass through the narrowest place that connects one world with another; that’s the place of the initial connection among us that happens at the minimal spiritual level. Are we able to achieve this or not?

If the answer is “yes,” then let’s do it, if the answer is “no,” let’s demand the Creator to do it, one of the two. Let’s make an immediate decision and execute it quickly rather than waste time!

As a rule, the evil inclination whispers into our ears with “promises” of tremendous success waiting for us “next time”; it tells us that we haven’t yet achieved all that we were capable of, we haven’t read enough or learned everything that we could have, and thus there are plenty of things that we still have to take care of.

This is how we acted for many years; we acknowledge that as a result of the influence of the group we began to realize that we are incapable of breaking into the spiritual world and we call for the Creator’s help.

This is the time when we start to scream and ask Him for His help, and this is the right direction because we do not possess the power of bestowal but only retain the force of receiving.

The group’s influence will provide everybody with the understanding that only the Creator is able to build a system of connection among us and unite us. We demand that it happens and strongly disagree with our egoism that invites us to continue working independently. There is no reason to continue acting the old way; our environment can influence us in a way that we will arrive at such a decision.
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From the lesson 11/12/10, “Letter 57,” Baal HaSulam

Has The Creator Left Me, Or Have I Left Him?

Question: Baal HaSulam said that a person must act practically in order to awaken a love for the Creator in him, but why is it so difficult to do so? Why is there such an inner resistance?

Answer: The fact is that the moment you fall, you not only cease to feel the love for Him, but  you also lose the connection with the Creator, and so it seems to you that the Creator has left you.

The truth is that His love is absolute and infinite, but the concealment on the part of yourego is increasing every day and every moment, so you don’t feel the love inside you. The point is that you forget that it is a result of your inner cooling off, and you think that it is the Creator who has left you.

Therefore, you cry out, “Why have you left me!” However, in fact, no one has left you. On the contrary, the Creator has given you a chance to discover Him even more, by yourself. This is the difference between religion and the wisdom of Kabbalah. A religious person prays to the Creator asking the Creator to do everything for him, while a Kabbalist prays to the Creator to give him the power and the means by which he can correct something.

Question: Does the idea of awakening the love for the Creator mean awakening the love of friends inside me?

Answer: It is impossible to do it otherwise. It is only through the love of friends that you can reach the love of the Creator. As it is written, “From the love of man to the love of God.”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/19/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam