Adhering To The Teacher With My Entire Ego

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But You Could Have Lived Five Minutes!

Question: Suppose I decided that I want to be responsible for everyone. What’s the point if I will fall in five minutes?

Answer: It makes no difference. Five minutes is quite all right. It means that there are already five minutes of our whole life that are worth something and which last forever. All the rest of your life is a waste of time, but you could have lived five minutes!

Question: However, I want to follow the example of Moses!

Answer: Moses is a spiritual level. The Torah doesn’t tell us about historical figures, but about spiritual levels. You also will reach the level of Moses at some point, and instead of your current name, you will be called Moses. Everyone who ascends to a certain level receives the name of that level.

Rabbi Yossi, Rabbi Chiya, and Rabbi Shimon, all these great sages, have names that indicate the spiritual levels they speak from. If we say that someone is someone else’s student, it means that he is on an adjacent level that is near the teacher.

Being a student of a Kabbalist is a very praiseworthy, respectable title. We know that the teacher is on a certain level and the student is one level below, nourished by the teacher.
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From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/14,Writings of Baal HaSulam

A Time When You Will Remember Everything That You Have Heard

Question: Why does Rabash write to a student who asked him to explain the order of spiritual work that as soon as he would start the work, he would immediately remember and understand all that he had heard from Rabash and Baal HaSulam?

Answer: If a person advances in the right way, he discovers all that is written in the books of Kabbalah by himself. It is as if he doesn’t need these writings, he discovers by himself everything that is written.

The writings are required in order to set yourself in the right direction all the time, to know whom are you going to, towards what, and to examine and update yourself. But in truth, if a person works in a group according to the right method, then a small adjustment is enough for him to discover all the rest.

The matter of forgetting is a unique power from Above; it makes free choice possible for us. If we didn’t forget but gathered and kept everything that we heard or felt like a computer, it would stop us and it would not be possible to do anything.

Forgetting, confusion, concealment, and lack of clarity come to give us a place for building ourselves. Therefore it is written, “Write on your heart,” because everyone must write the entire book of Torah on his desire, meaning to convey it to himself by way of all of these states.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/14, Writings of Rabash

It Is Good To Be Together In The Center Of The Group And Bad To Be Alone

Question: What does it mean that suffering shortens time?

Answer:  The sufferings and clarifications shorten time because I must feel:

Evil in the desire to receive and good in the desire to bestow.
Bad alone and good together.
Bad outside of the center of the group and good within the center of the group.

All of this is against my substance, my desire. If I strive against my desire, I feel anguish and I am not ready to carry this out. A person is not ready to suffer willingly, and where there is suffering, he cannot enter.

Only provided that he has a greater goal that covers up the suffering will he be ready to accept them, like a patient who agrees to an operation. Even though it is unpleasant and dangerous, he goes along with this or otherwise he will die. So don’t consider him to be a hero; he indeed understands that without this it is impossible to go on and that it is worthwhile for him to accept the suffering and remain alive.

Every beast and every person makes a calculation like this. But we need to go against our desire to receive, without any justification of the desire to receive.

When I go against my ego and try to be integrated into society and into a group, to be together with them and to carry out what they want, I have no justification for this. I cannot say that there will be some kind of benefit from this for me. I don’t see a purpose for which it is worthwhile for me to yield and do what they want. There is no justification; I can’t swap a cow for a donkey. So how will I do this?

It is here that a place for the prayer of many is created, which is a request to receive the power of bestowal. I want to bestow without any compensation. This is against my nature, and it is impossible to carry this out. If they were to give me compensation, on the contrary, I surely would bestow in order to receive. If I need to give someone ten dollars and get back, let’s say, something worth a thousand dollars, I will happily bestow.

I have no problem in bestowing in order to receive, everyone does this. But here we are talking about bestowing without any compensation for myself, without any fulfillment. How is it possible to do this? There are no such actions in our world. For everything I do, there must be an opposite reaction from the other side. Otherwise this would be a perpetual motion machine, an eternal engine that constantly supplies energy and power without being charged.

There is nothing like this in our world, yet there is in spirituality! This is the power of theCreator who can bestow without any compensation. I want to get this power. If through a small illumination the desire to acquire this characteristic grows in me, this is a sign that I have already advanced to Lishma and I have already begun to demand: “Give me the power to bestow without anything in return.”

I want to be wise, sensitive, and understanding, so that I will be able to bestow and have all that I need for this bestowal. And so I receive this ability.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/14, Writings of Rabash

A Pressure Gauge That Helps Me To Rise

Question: In our group, we read the article “There is None Else Besides Him” every day, but it never is felt as deeply as I have felt it here. It is like cooking some dish without spices. Here, I felt this spice, this taste. What kind of spice can you give us so that we will feel it all the time, everywhere?

Answer: You will not believe me, but I always am watching to relate to a group not like my little pupils but like those who are higher than me. Outside, they don’t see this because I can yell at them too, but, internally, I always am careful with myself.

This is my barometer (pressure gauge), how much I feel them higher than me; I can rise only this way and it makes no difference how they behave. The Creator chose, brought, and gathered them, and it is enough for me to think that there is no one before me higher than they are.

There are Kabbalists who are no longer with us in this world. But I almost don’t feel anything besides my friends. If I could, I would use the opportunity to feel them and to be in contact with them, bringing my excitement, my relationship with them about the greatness of the Creator so that, together with them, I will reach discovery of the Creator, because all of this is found within them.

There is nothing else besides this holding on, this group we were given. Only through dissolving into it, magnifying it, can I approach the Creator who is found within it. We don’t need anything else besides a constant concern to relate to a group like this.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/4/14, Lesson 1

Adaptation Of Inner Images

Question: Sometimes we feel bored, fall asleep during the lesson, or are carried away by foreign thoughts. Why does the Creator prepare things this way? What does He want to show us? How is it possible to keep the same level of intention all the time?

Answer: When you listen to my lessons you should try to feel every word I say to its full depth. Everything is built on your identification with me.

I don’t say anything before I create some images inside me that I then convey verbally to others, hoping that they can hear them and accordingly build that same image inside them. When our images correlate, we start a dialog of inner clarifications of that image: what attributes, merits, and movements are in it.

If you don’t form an inner sensory image inside yourself from what you hear from me, you probably are sitting without your incorporation in me and my incorporation in you. This is the problem. So, after a while, you surely fall asleep, lose contact, and the meaning and feeling of the necessity of this lesson.

There are people who cannot operate this way because they think they know a lot. What’s important for them is to hear me in order to dispute me. I am not offended by them since this attitude is naturally imprinted in them and it is very hard for them to perceive the material correctly. I identify with them, but they should overcome these states because if a student doesn’t form the image that the teacher conveys inside him, he doesn’t learn.

On the other hand, when you have a dialog with your friends, it is certainly easier, simpler, and better for you. Everything between you is built especially on sympathy and empathy. It is much easier for you to communicate with the friends because their language is much simpler than mine.

We try to convey the lessons in the form of workshops. This method helps people feel and connect to the text and the one who wrote it much more deeply.
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How Can I Measure How Close I Am To The Teacher?

Question: One student may think that he is close to the teacher but may not be close and it can also be the other way around; one may think that he is far from the teacher but in fact is close to him. How can we measure that?

Answer: We don’t measure this according to what a student thinks but according to the opportunities that he had to subdue himself against his will and to the efforts he made in doing so. Closeness, just like other things, is measured according to the effort that is made above our ego.

We can only measure things by our ego. Measure is determined by how much do I have: how I can take my desires and weigh them like weights on a scale.

Everything depends on self-annulment. Don’t expect to reach some tough static system that has been stabilized once and already exists. The work we have to do is continuous, constant, according to three states: submission, differentiation, and sweetening, which is the constant work of the lower with regard to the upper, of a person with regard to thegroup, of a group with regard to the teacher.

Question: Is it true that if a person fails to connect to his teacher when the teacher is alive, it will be very difficult for him to do so afterward?

Answer: I don’t think it’s even possible to do so afterward. Try to connect to Baal HaSulam now or to any other great Kabbalist! This world was created in order to enable us to reach a corporeal connection, so that we will be able to perceive the upper in some way. If we have no corporeal contact with the upper, how can you hold on to Him? Now there is the seemingly corporeal form of the teacher before you, some corporeal representation with which you can come in contact. You can already connect to this image, bestow upon him, and serve him. Thus, you acquire a place by him according to your efforts. It says that if the groom is a great man and he receives a ring as a present from his bride, it’s as if he has given it to her. If you really want to serve and to bestow, you feel that you receive. The same relations should be among the friends, and each one should feel this way with regards to the others.

Question: When do I connect to the teacher, is it before transcending the Machsom(barrier) or afterward?

Answer: You will not transcend the Machsom if you don’t annul yourself before the teacher. We are here in order to establish a system that will take on a form above theMachsom. If this system isn’t made of the relations that are necessary above theMachsom, how can you transcend it? You don’t transcend the border to the spiritual world by marching along, but by the connections between us, by overcoming the Machsom that separates us.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

Desperate Attempts To Decipher The Rav

Question: If a Kabbalist lives in two worlds, in the physical world and in the spiritual world, then how are the physical and spiritual divided within him? Does the physical influence the decisions and behavior of a Kabbalist?

Answer: According to my experience I can say that it’s impossible to understand this from the outside. A person doesn’t see anyone outside of himself. He always sees everything through his eyes, through his brain, through his desire to receive, through his heart. And therefore he never sees another person as he is, rather only through his filter.

All the more so when he looks at his Rav, he cannot decipher where the spirituality and the physicality are here. He doesn’t know the percentage that the physical enters into the spiritual with his Rav . The lower cannot make these calculations regarding the higher.

Understanding is possible only if you have an internal “judicial” system within you identical to that which is in the higher. But if you don’t have that system, then how can you judge someone? So this is impossible.

It’s even impossible to achieve this with yourself, all the more so someone else; this is something completely unknown. We see only the images that are portrayed within us. Therefore we need to go with faith above reason with regard to every person, and certainly with regard to the Rav. WITH regard to the Rav there is a relationship on a much higher level because in this case our ego portrays for us all kinds of decisions, actions, and thoughts that always transform everything in our favor and make life easier for us.

Therefore, I don’t see any other possibility beside following the Rav with eyes shut and doing everything possible, as it is said, (Ecclesiastes 9:10) “Whatever your hand attains to do [as long as you are] with your strength, do.” And it’s also the same thing regarding a friend, for in this way we hold the friend as higher, like a Rav.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

A Closed Tap Due To Incompatible Attributes

Question: If a student is connected his teacher, can a student do something against the teacher’s will, consciously or by mistake, and thus turn off his spiritual tap? How does this system work?

Answer: The tap will be turned off in any case because the law of the lack of equivalence of form operates. In that case there cannot be a connection between us and there is a breach. Now this connection has to be renewed and it depends on what caused the breach, on how I caused it. Do I have to go through the four stages of correction, do I have to feel the depth of the upper’s greatness, the recognition of exile, which means the absolute disconnection?

I may have been wrong by mistake and I may have done it on purpose. The way the sin was committed makes the whole difference. There are cases in which after committing a murder a person escapes to a city of refuge or is sentenced to death, and there are cases when nothing is done to a person when it occurred during a military conflict or if defending oneself from an attack by someone armed with a knife. There are different cases, but this is related to correction, to the reconstruction of the connection.

If I don’t have the same desire as my teacher and I don’t delight him in any way, I am simply not connected to him in any way. If I want to delight my teacher in order to receive something in return, I am in contact with him but this connection is according to the Surrounding Light. I establish it, but in the meantime, in an alternative manner, not directly. I cannot relate to my teacher directly and delight him. I delight him only so that I will benefit from him, which means in order to receive, but in fact I want to delight him and through him to delight the Creator.

I plan this chain, but in the meantime I don’t know how to do it. It’s as if I have already chosen the right direction according to my capability, according to my attributes. This is called working indirectly, between GE and AHP, but in the meantime, I have no such connection. I don’t annul myself before the upper, but am connected to Him through the Surrounding Light. It is only if I cannot be in direct contact with Him according to my nature, which means that I am compelled.

But if it isn’t clear that I work against his will, there is no hope that I will receive anything from him. This is how we begin to feel that we have a different, new mind. It’s as if I stop making any accounts on the level of this world, according to my common sense, with my thoughts and my solutions, since this account is totally incompatible with our system.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson “Teacher”

A Stable Base For The Group

Question: How must the group work on its connection in order to adhere to the Rav and not allow external viruses to pull the entire society somewhere to the side?

Answer: The group must learn the method of correction on the spiritual path from the Rav, but realize it in itself. The connection between the friends must provide everyone with such a power, with such a foundation, that they will also be ready to hold themselves in their place without the Rav. They need the Rav only to be able to advance constantly in the right direction.

But on the level that has already been attained, the group must already be in such mutual connection that it creates a stable base so that they don’t need anyone; in the connection between them, they discover the Creator, and in this way they advance.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

Internal Disagreement With The Teacher Leads To External Distance

Question: Through service to his Rav (teacher), a student is linked to his Rav, to the Elyon (upper), and receives from him. What happens if there is a situation where the student does something against the desire of his Rav for whatever reason? How does this influence the link between them and the advancement of the student?

Answer: This indicates total detachment. If it is clear to a student that he is acting against the desire of his Rav, then how can he behave like this? The main spiritual law is the law of equivalence of form. Therefore, for the needs of Dvekut (adhesion), it is at least necessary not to oppose, but to be in some kind of agreement. Even if you are not ready to carry something out, you cannot act in opposition.

If the student acts in opposition to the desire of his Rav, then he has no chance of receiving something from him. We also need to understand that spiritual equivalence or lack of equivalence is much more intense than physical equivalence, and therefore it influences the physical world. In other words, it will lead to a great distance of the student from the Rav. He has no chance of remaining near him.

Certainly, for a student, there is the possibility of approach and correction, for the Rav sees him as a little child who is capable of doing something foolish. The Rav can be angry at the student as at a child, but in spite of all this, he thinks of him as his son, and so he forgives him. However, he cannot agree and allow the child to act against his spiritual development.

In the physical world, sometimes we have no choice but to look with forgiveness at the mischief of children. However, in spirituality, it is impossible to tolerate this. This is because behavior like this leads to a lack of equivalence of form that is the main law of reality.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

Following The Teacher Step By Step

Question: A convention is always a great test for us. How can we make sure that we are in the right direction between the conventions, even when we experience negative feelings?

Answer: I cannot tell you when you experience negative feelings and when you don’t. If you are connected to us, you advance and the geographic distance is meaningless.

I will say it again, you advance only when you are with us in all our collective actions because by missing a couple of lessons, you miss much more and then you will not understand what is said in the next lesson. You will not understand things internally! You will not have the necessary filling and satiation.

My lessons are always inclined upwards, constantly upwards. You may think that it’s a repetition or that it has nothing to do with the previous material, but it’s not so! I always move forward! It may be presented differently, in a different manner or style, but it’s always on an increasingly higher level.

So you mustn’t miss any lessons! If you haven’t had a chance to listen to the lessons for a couple of days for different reasons, then you should still watch them later. The problem is that many of our friends don’t take the daily participation in the lessons seriously while I base my study precisely on that. A student is a person who follows me step by step.
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A Road Paved With Stumbling Blocks

Question: What is it like under the guidance of a spiritual teacher? Is it like a trip with a tourist guide in London or like dangerous mountain climbing where you cannot take a step to the left or to the right without a guide since you might fall?

Answer: In a tour of London you can listen with half an ear to the tourist guide and at the same time walk around as you like. But is this similar to the spiritual path, which you know nothing about?

You have to enter spirituality. The guide tells you that in order to enter spirituality you have to keep certain conditions, but you say that you don’t accept half of these conditions but keep on following the group. How can that be? Can you climb a mountain if you don’t accept half of the guide’s instructions? You have to be as obedient as a baby and totally annul yourself in the arms of the guide.

Question: But I am not a baby I am an adult! I gained a wealth of experience in my life and I have studied with other teachers before.

Answer: You are even less than a baby! If you don’t listen to the guide’s advice, you are like a grownup with the tiny brain of a baby who doesn’t let others take care of him. There are strict laws here that cannot be changed. You cannot ask for mercy like in court. In court you can still cry and plead for mercy. But here there are no manipulations that will help: There is a law, “He has given a law that cannot be broken.” Choose: Do you accept it or not?

There are many people who climb mountains and there are always those who stumble and fall into the great abyss, back into the domination of the egoistic forces, the Sitra Achra. Only few reach the king’s palace that is on the mountaintop: those who have the patience, which means that they try as hard as they can to follow the guide, against any thoughts they may have and against their own mind.

These are the small differences that determine everything where you encounter the resistance of your mind and cannot overcome its demands and do the opposite compared to what the teacher or Baal HaSulam demand of you. It is because you agree with everything else in your ego, but here you encounter what is against your ego, and it is here that you need to ask for help and to ascend.

These are the points that you encounter and which you cannot overcome. They connect and become a line, a path that brings you to the Lord’s palace. It is impossible to advance any other way. You say: “But I agree to everything else!” It is wonderful that you agree, but everything else has nothing to do with spirituality. Spirituality is only in the points where you don’t agree!

You advance only through the points where you disagree: one point after the next. You have to agree on them, under the influence of the environment, the study, etc. but your agreement doesn’t have to be pragmatic. If you agree to disseminate as the teacher asks because you hope to receive a reward, then it is not working in faith above reason anymore, but for a corporeal reward.

We should be careful in using the points of friction and not making them worthwhile. You cannot agree to disseminate in order to feel that you are great standing before a crown or in order to make money. You have to follow these stumbling points in faith above reasonand then these points will turn into a line.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Where It Hurts Most

Question: The spiritual path goes only through points of friction where I disagree with the teacher and the group. How can I agree if I see that you are wrong?

Answer: Of course you see that the teacher is wrong. You also think that the Creator is wrong in having arranged this tough life in this world for us. Couldn’t He have made it peaceful, pleasurable, and serene?

This spiritual path is against your ego, which means against your desire and your mind. You must constantly rise above the points of friction, which are against your feelings and your mind, one by one, over and over again. These are the points that the spiritual path is made of that become a “door, an opening, and entrance” to adhesion with the Creator and with His creation: “He is one and His name is One.”

This step is always above your reason, where the next stage is. Everything else with which you agree—the pleasant meals together, the friends, the interesting trips—have nothing to do with spirituality! These are only accompanying factors that are meant to bring out the points of friction which are most important.

On the one hand, there is the ordinary life in this world, and on the other hand, there is the life in the group. All this works out very well on all sides. But you are stuck in the middle and cannot agree on certain points and you think to yourself: “Oh well never mind, this is nonsense, so what I if don’t agree! I agree with everything else.”

In your ordinary life you get married, you build a family, work, and do everything, and you live in the group, work with your friends, pay maaser, and participate in all the events. But in certain states you suddenly get stuck and cannot agree and cannot leap over them. At the same time, however, you take the right side or the left side without any problems. Of course, you don’t have a problem, since your ego agrees with everything that happens there.

You should only identify the place where there can be a door, an opening and an entrance. It is there where it hurts the most! You don’t want to evoke these points since this is where you feel the real friction, like a painful injection.

You are with everyone in your feelings and your mind! You love to study, to discuss spiritual matters, you love to spend time with the friends, you give them presents, you “buy the friends,” you invite them over. But sometimes it seems that when it comes to certain matters the group makes wrong decisions. You don’t object but wait quietly until the friends will finally grow up and understand their mistakes and correct them, which means, that they will agree with you. You understand that there is no alternative and nowhere to go since you admit that it is a wonderful, great, smart group and that nothing compares to it.

It is a very common attitude that is typical of most students, but gradually, after several years of study, you begin to feel and see these points of friction in which you get stuck. It is there, in these points, where the entrance that is about to open is. It isn’t a door but a wall, but by working in faith above reason, you will see a door in this wall that will immediately open up and become an opening and an entrance.

The entrance can only be in these points of friction and they are what you should look for and differentiate from everything else! Everything else is under the control of your ego. Only in these points of friction can there be the opening to another dimension by the power of faith.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

A Spiritual Baby Needs To Be Fed And Educated

Baal HaSulam, Letter 26: That power, to heed the word of the sages in this reality, in Dalet, is called “faith.”

If you want the upper to take care of your spiritual development, you have to be like a baby and place yourself in the hands of the group and teacher so that they can take care of you.

But if you don’t annul yourself before them, you will not be able to go on to the next level. Only then can they clean you like it says: “the mother shall come and clean her son.” It cannot be any other way. This is exactly what we do in this world when parents take care of a baby and he naturally annuls himself before us. In the spiritual world, however, you have to place yourself by yourself in the hands of the greater so that he can take care of you.

There is no other way. Who else can take care of you? What would happen if a baby was a big strong dimwit and not small and helpless, it would be impossible to take care of him. It would simply be scary to come near such a monster with such a big ego.

A baby has to be fed from a bottle, he has to be cleaned, diapered, and given everything that a baby needs, but in the spiritual sense, of course. He should also be put to bed and then awakened. He should be taught and brought up! After taking care of everything that he needs on the corporeal level, you should begin to teach him; when his body has received everything that it needs, you should gradually give him the inner filling so that he will gradually learn to annul himself.

You don’t start off your spiritual path from the level of a baby and not even from the level of an embryo. You have not clarified and differentiated your drop of spiritual semen yet. You still have to imagine the Reshimot (spiritual genes) that you have to fulfill: to use all your physical powers, your mind, and all the means that you have in this world in order to develop from the present that you were given, from this drop of spiritual semen.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Putting My Life In The Hands Of The Guide

Baal HaSulam is our guide and this means that I must accept everything that is in his books as the absolute truth. If I can understand what it says in my own mind, then I accept it of course, but even if I don’t understand, I should accept it even without understanding. Otherwise I will not reach the desired goal.

A guide means that he is a couple of steps before me telling me: “Follow me, to the right, to the left, straight ahead!” And I follow him. I don’t see the road, but he sees and is walking ahead of me. When I lift my foot in order to take the next step, I don’t know where to put it, and so I ask him: “Should I put it this way?” And he answers: “This way! Now a bit more to the left; not that way, a bit more to the left.” And I follow his instructions. This is following the guide.

It is also the same in our world. If I go mountain climbing or to some other dangerous place where I do not know the road, I put my life in the hands of the guide. It isn’t a tour guide in London; it is called a source, a guide.

The guide of the Bnei Baruch group is Baal HaSulam. If you want to study with us, you should know that we study according to our source. If not, then you should look for somewhere else to study. This is what Rabash told me when I asked him how I could be sure I was in the right place. I was thirty years old, full of energy, I had everything: health, family, money, everything one needs in life. I also asked him the same question: “I am following you and I have to dedicate 20 years before I reach anything, if I find out that this path is wrong, I will discover it when I am 50 and it would already be too late to correct anything in the few years that I would have left. How can I now be sure that I am in the right place?” And he answered: “Go and look for the right place.”

I was disappointed with the answer. I thought that if he were a spiritual guide, he should advise me to make the right choice. But this was his advice: “You should look for yourself, I cannot tell you.” If you choose a certain place, you should accept the teacher and follow him blindly. He becomes your head.

So if anyone doubts me, you should check me with regard to Baal HaSulam. I will be only too happy since I see my mission as presenting him to the public. This is how a person should check if this path is right for him or not; it is a waste of time to study if one doesn’t accept this method.

But if a person has already decided to study in one of our groups, he cannot accept only part of what we study and reject other parts. It turns out that with this he makes a decision based on his ego, thinking that it is more important than the path that we follow and study. I respect his opinion, but it is impossible to advance if one doesn’t accept this method above reason. Sometimes when you reject it but still accept the mind of the upper, you can advance, but if you don’t agree with the teacher about corporeal actions since you judge by your corporeal mind, on the corporeal level, then it cannot be. It is clear how you should perform them and you need to perform them in faith above reason.

Where faith is involve, the influence of the group is necessary. It is very simple: You either agree and accept things or you don’t belong and don’t advance along our path by even one step. A person has to calculate things, and if he disagrees with the teacher when it comes to corporeal matters, then he will certainly disagree when it comes to spiritual issues. He is only deluding himself that in spirituality everything is fine, but his work will lead to nothing. This is the reason that only very few people reach the goal.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

A Door, An Opening, An Entrance

A door, an opening, and an entrance appear all at once in spirituality. So don’t expect to see a door from a distance, then approach it and open it. When you see a door, it immediately opens! This is the law, and accordingly, if it is fulfilled, it will happen.

It is only if my vessel becomes similar to the Light—which happens suddenly like the exodus from Egypt, which was in a hurry—do I suddenly see a door that immediately becomes an opening, and I enter.

We can perform such an action in complete faith which means if I put a Masach (screen) of “in order to bestow” upon my vessel, and I become equal to the upper level.

Baal HaSulam, Letter 26: That power, to heed the word of the sages in this reality inDalet, is called “faith”…

A person who wants to get closer to the opening must work according to the faith of the sages. To the extent that he is adhered to the greatness of his teacher and the group, he receives power by his dedication and can approach this door. He doesn’t have any powers of his own. This is how it is arranged in our world, and a person is given a teacher, a group, and the study, in order to summon the Light that Reforms, which can bring a person closer to the entrance, to the spiritual world.

…is called “faith,” as it is not established at once, but through education, adaptation, and through work.

This is what integral education is meant for, so that, by using it, people will receive the Light that Reforms that will change them. This is the difference between integral education and ordinary education that doesn’t summon the Light that Reforms and doesn’t change a person. Therefore, it is so important that every guide and teacher of integral education who works with the public should be strongly connected to the group and the study and only then to go out to disseminate.

It is similar to the tutoring of a child, who would be like an unturned stone were it not for the tutor who rears him. This is why this work is generally called “a robe,” as it is an overcoat, “beyond” human conception…

That is, above the mind of that child.

In the corporeal world, there are children who don’t have a mind yet, who are ready to annul themselves before the grownup so that he will take care of them. This is how it is naturally arranged in corporeality. If a person were born as a grownup—with a developed mind, with his own feelings and opinions—it would be impossible to take care of him. Only when he annuls himself like a baby does he allow others to do whatever they want with him. Only when he lowers his head, believing and knowing that he totally depends on you, will you be able to do something for him.

Can you imagine whether it is easy for a grown person to subdue himself that way? However, this is what we actually must do. We must take an example from this world when it comes to the phase of conception, Ibur, suckling, Yenika, and mind, Mochin. Otherwise, you will not be able to advance.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Learning To Listen To The Teacher

Question: When is a person considered a student of his teacher?

Answer: A student is called someone who adheres to his teacher (meaning in the inner way) and tries to “suck” everything possible out of him. Like a baby who is sucking milk out of his mother, a student is trying to suck out of his teacher everything he has and to grow, meaning develop what he receives.

He is not capable of receiving all the knowledge, attainment, and sensation instantly, but he can obtain the tools in order to develop everything within himself. After all, a child receiving his mother’s milk does not digest it inside of him, but rather he turns it into meat, muscles, and bones. He is building his organism and developing himself. The same thing happens here.

We have to understand that from a teacher we receive something that we wish to receive and only in the form and to the extent that we put forth our efforts toward it. We do not hear what the teacher says; we only hear what we wish to hear. The work of a student is to annul his psychological obstacles and begin to listen to the teacher. In other words, the work of a student is the annulling of his ego.
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From the Talk about Group and Dissemination 10/20/13

Contact With The Teacher

Question: What can be done if the group opinion is contrary to the opinion of the teacher? Which side should one choose?

Answer: We know that our small children don’t agree with us about many questions. Either they don’t agree because they are still small or because we didn’t explain everything to them sufficiently. This must be clarified.

But if you truly have a conflict with me and it is not imaginary, then you have a problem. Then you get absolutely nothing from me! And this says that you don’t have any possibility of advancing spiritually.

I suggest to people who don’t have contact with me, to leave us and search for another teacher, for time is running out, life is going on and coming to an end. That’s too bad. It could be that you will have another teacher with whom you can find contact and move forward. I say this for your own good. If there is no contact with me from your side, then you are not bringing any benefit to the entire movement of the world group.

There must be contact with the teacher as there should be with the Creator. Even contact with a friend must be as it should be with the Creator, because all this is connected together: group, teacher, and all the Kabbalists and transforms into being a single whole.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/13, Question and Answers with Dr. Laitman

Two Ways Of Revealing The Point In The Heart

Question: What does it mean not to place a stumbling block before a blind person?

Answer: It means that you shouldn’t tell a student what he cannot yet overcome.

It isn’t about the masses, but about students, although the general public also slowly catching up.

The difference is that individuals who have a point in the heart advance along the straight path by revealing this point individually, while the public follow their own path and discover the point in the heart among them. So our path is independent of the others and we only create the influence of a small environment around us. The public, however, advance towards the Creator (the attribute of love and bestowal) by the connection between them.

Question: Is there any illumination coming out of this point in the heart?

Answer: It depends on the connection. In case of the general population, the point in the heart is created in the center of the circle, while in our case it is in each one of us, and these points connect in the center of our circle. So in our case the movement is individual, in a group, while for them it is only in a mass, in a group and not personal. Therefore, we have to educate and serve them.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/24/13