Stand Firmly “On One Leg”

We are not familiar with our own nature and therefore we err all the time in one direction or another in our self-evaluation, blaming or justifying ourselves unjustly. We must understand that we have no possibility of seeing the truth and the only way out is to rely on the Light that Reforms.

Our self-image, our characteristics that now seem to us beautiful or not, all this is still far from a true understanding ourselves that will be discovered in the Light of the Creatorwhen we see our true nature. Only then can we decide what is bad and what is good in us, for even pride is not a useless characteristic.

As it is written, “And his heart was uplifted in the ways of the Lord…” (II Chronicles 17:6), which is to say, we need to be proud, to overcome difficulties, to stand firmly on the way of truth, and not allow anyone to divert us from the way or humiliate us. In this case, humility is not appropriate.

In our view of ourselves and about others, there is much confusion; therefore, the only solution is attracting the Light that Reforms. As it is written, only “…in Your light we will see light” (Psalms 36:10), and, until then, it is necessary only to perform the advice of the Kabbalists precisely in order to advance as much as possible toward true observation of all of our nature and ourselves.

Hillel explained the correct approach, “anything you hate, do not do to others ” (that is what Hillel answered to that convert who asked him to teach him the entire Torah while “standing on one leg”). In the meantime, this is the only examination that we are prepared to make.

If you stand with them on this one foundation, “on one leg,” then this is enough. Even though your condition is very unsure and shaky when you are standing on one leg, if you hold to this one foundation and nothing more—by maintaining this foundation all the time, “anything you hate, do not do to others”—then you can move forward.

We don’t need anything else; this one thing is enough. This is a necessary and sufficient condition. Nothing else is required except connection and we need to work only by means of this all the time. The nature of the action is examined according only to how much the connection between us will be stronger. We don’t take into account anything that is happening around us at all. This already would be a “second leg,” a “third,” which can bring us only great confusion in the work. Therefore, you only should be concerned about your connection.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/16/13

The True Sweet Point

What is called “faith in the sages” is when I follow everything that is arranged for me from above. In every Partzuf, in every situation that I see before me, I see the Creator.

I see the whole wide world before me and I need to understand that all of these things are pictures that the Creator draws for me. I don’t know what I truly see. However, if I take the entire world as a picture within me from the Creator, then I am moving in the right direction in the right degree of truth and falsehood.

This direction is true, and so I see before me conditions that must exist: Israel (my yearning directly to the Creator – Yashar El), Torah (all of the shattered Kelim with the Light that must bring them to unity), and the Creator. All three of these conditions gradually transform into one, for I try to identify the Creator that acts within the world and presents this world to me in a new form all the time.

I accept this world as a picture of the Creator for He wanted me to feel this, understand this, taste the bitterness and sweetness, the truth and the falsehood, and unite this together with Him in a single point. Ultimately, these three components must reach unity, which is called the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun).

All of our work with truth and falsehood and bitter and sweet are essentially clarifications that we must make. To do this, we need to be in a group to clarify our relationships between us,  to learn to draw the Light that Reforms. As a result, we must connect all of reality, on one hand, attributing it to the Creator and on the other hand, to myself accepting it as a display that the Creator shows me so that I will be able to connect all parts of reality to it.

That is how we reach the common point of everything called the end of correction. In our world now everything is bitter and false, whereas at the end of correction only sweetness and truth are left.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/13, Shamati #148 “The Scrutiny of Bitter and Sweet, True and False”

Together It Is Easy To Work, Alone It Is Easy To Kill Time

Question: How do we overcome the desire to postpone everything till tomorrow, till the next lesson, till the next convention? There is a feeling that there is still enough time and that we can wait.

Answer: It is the illusion of the ego that a person cannot overcome by himself. If you are alone at home you will surely deal with different foolish matters and it will lead to nothing. It will just be a waste of time today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and also in a year and two years from now. You will never be able to use the time efficiently as long as you are by yourself. It is “either a group or death.”

Everyone must make a certain commitment that cannot be postponed or that he cannot escape. These commitments should tie you to the friends and you should work on something together.

You have to constantly tie yourself to the need to advance in different ways:

1. work committments
2. friends
3. shame of not finishing, that everyone would know and see what you haven’t completed.

The feeling of shame should be as strong as the fear of death. Being among the friends is the only thing that will push you to make good use of the time. If you are alone and you can use the time as you wish, you can be sure that it will fool you. Time is a shell (Klipa) and a very strong egoistic force. It will draw you to different silly dealings.

But when we work together, we suddenly work easily, gladly, and pleasantly!
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/13, The Zohar

Don’t Postpone Anything

Question: Why do I keep forgetting and lose the line of thought that we have to be as “one man in one heart?”

Answer: It is because you don’t feel it as a critical need; that’s the whole problem. When a person is sick he constantly thinks only about the medicine that can heal him. It is said that the Light is a remedy for all ills, but we don’t feel it.

We don’t regard the wisdom of Kabbalah as a means for personal and general advancement, since we feel good this way. We cannot spur ourselves so that the goalwill attract us so strongly that we will be ready to do whatever is necessary.

So what happens in this situation? It says: “I am placing upon them a king like Haman…” and then having no choice we will have to do what has to be done, which means by the path of suffering. The sufferings are necessary, but we can replace them by inner sufferings, to shake ourselves and to ignite our desire for the goal. If the goal is important and I am far from it, I feel pain. I don’t ignore the pain, but rather, I make an effort to overcome the gap between me and the goal. This means that the pain pushes me forward.

But instead, we relax each time and think that it isn’t so bad and that we can wait. Baal HaSulam, however, warns us in his book The Sages’ Fruit, “Letter 13″: …and the truth will show him the way, and the one who feels sorrow makes his sorrow known and he cannot hide it or restrain himself. Indeed this is how I will feel all of you together when today will become tomorrow and instead of now you will say later. And there is no remedy for that, except to make an effort and to understand this mistake and this distortion that the one who is saved by the Creator is saved if he needs the salvation today, while he who can wait for tomorrow will become wise only when his life is over. You feel this because you have neglected my request to exert yourself in the love of friends, which I have explained to you every way I can that this merit is enough to provide everything that you lack.

Everything that happens to us is only in order to strengthen love of friends because to the same extent, we draw the Light that Reforms that corrects everything. If we perform a certain action, we have to first check if it leads to a stronger connection or whether it leads to separation. Then we will immediately understand what should be done and what shouldn’t be done, what we should get closer to and what we should run from. It is because we draw the Light by the connection between us. When we connect, we draw another portion of Light, and so on and so on. This is the whole secret, and there is nothing but that.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/13, The Zohar

“Though War Should Rise Up Against Me, Even Then Will I Be Confident”

If people understood that all the misfortunes that befall them—hunger, war, and disease—could easily be eliminated by one appeal to the Creator, that we only need to move toward Him before all these hardships, haunting us for thousands of years, fall upon us; what a light and easy life we would have!

After all, we are all in a common boat in the same current. But how many thousands of years has humanity been under pressure so that we finally realize that there is no alternative, we have to get closer to the Creator. All problems come just for that reason.

How much unhappiness and misery throughout history could we have avoided had we listened to Abraham in ancient Babylon and united as one man with one heart? All our history would have been different. We would easily have achieved a higher dimension and lived as in Paradise, in a harmonious union of the desire to enjoy and the desire to bestow, developing our attainment to perfection.

We should not forget that all the troubles and problems are designed to push us toward the Creator. But as long as a person is developing on the still degree, he advances very slowly, through a lot of suffering. On the vegetative degree, development becomes more intense, and on the animate and human, even faster. We see that the rate of change is increasingly growing, that is why in the course of our life we can accomplish many various actions every hour.

We have an opportunity to check how one affects the other and how our advancement toward the Creator affects the fact that we avoid troubles. It is said, “Thou embrace me from the front and from behind.” “From the front” is the direct control of the Creator if I seek Him and draw the Light that Reforms to myself, according to my efforts.

And “from behind” is His indirect control if I am too lazy to make efforts and to advance myself. Then, the same Light that was supposed to be revealed before me as Surrounding and Reforming Light affects me from the reverse side in order to turn me toward the source by the path of suffering. And this advancement is stretched out for a long time and is accompanied by suffering.

As it is sung in one Sabbath song, “Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear! Though war should rise up against me, even then will I be confident.” “Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear!” is a high state when a person reaches the realization that he is pushed by pressure from behind because that is the form of advancement now. But he relies on the Creator, on the Upper governance, understanding that everything comes from there, and that is why only by striving upward can he save himself from all troubles. And most importantly, he relies on the help of the Creator so that he will be able to seek the Creator not out of fear but to bring Him pleasure.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/13/13

Opening The Way To The Light

We connect in order to be guarantors for each other, but tell me: How much money do you have in your bank account that will make you want to be my guarantor? Do you know what debts I have, what problems? No one knows what can happen to me tomorrow, and you will need to cover it. How many millions do you have in order to give me all that I am lacking?

You are a guarantor only in that you build such a relationship toward me where you are concerned that nothing will be lacking for me, that you open yourself up to me, but not physically.

Physically, not one of us is able to do anything. Even with all the US banks backing you, an army armed to the teeth, and a horde of attorneys at your disposal, you still would not be able to be my guarantor in anything. So, how can we commit to be guarantors for each other?

This is not the guarantee of anything except your opening the way for the Light. You neutralize my ego, and the Light enters and changes my attitude toward life. I am transformed into a new person. You don’t need to show me that you have any knowledge or any ability, any corporeal covering for my problems or shortcomings. You only need to open the door to the Light, and I suddenly stop worrying about myself.

What is needed from you is only trying to relate to me from above your ego, and all the rest the Light will do. The Creator will finish this work for me, but you need to begin it. If you are carrying a heavy bag on your back and the bag is about to fall from your shoulders, then you will get help to carry it. However, if the bag is not heavy and not falling and you just cry that it is difficult for you, then don’t expect help.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/1/13, Shamati #38 “The Fear of God Is His Treasure”

Our Weapon Is In The Creator’s Hands

Question: You said that all we must do is express our willingness for the Upper Light to reform us. There are quite a few groups who are striving to unite for some purpose: the mafia to rule in their area, a Kabbalistic group to achieve some exalted goal. They both say they want to unite; however, in either case, something slows them down, preventing them from reaching unity.

Answer: As for the regional mafia, it lies in their hands. As to “spiritual mafia,” they have a problem: They have no weapon. Their weapon lies in the hands of the Creator. The Creator will hand it over on one condition: that you will be worthy of it, meaning, you will know how to use it correctly. The Light is the most powerful weapon; nothing supersedes its might. It contains the most enormous pleasure, infinite fulfillment, limitless possibilities to do anything at all. How can He give such a weapon to you?

Look how we guard our children while they are growing up from everything that might harm them! Can man be given something so dangerous that he could destroy everything? Therefore, the Upper Light comes to us through concealments, the system of worlds, and works by way of advancing us step by step in stages. This is what we currently are experiencing as suffering. All of this is its effect aimed at advancing us so that in the end we would understand what we need to do, like children who misbehave. It can’t be otherwise!

How can this spiritual mafia be granted the Light? They will make such a feast “for themselves” that it will be more horrible than Babylon and Egypt together. In truth, before they are reformed, they are all Amans. Everyone has a Malchut of Infinity, but we don’t get to know it. I reside in the uppermost layer of egoism, this corporeal world, and below me lies the entire dense thickness of infinite ego, the Malchut of Infinity.

When I am illuminated by a small Light that has passed through the filters of all worlds, it illuminates only a tiny layer of egoism for me. If all of it came in and the entire abyss of egoism opened up, I would never be able to climb out of it, and this is the reason why this world is so small.

Look at how much we are helped from above right now, for it already has exhausted itself, and I see its end, the rock bottom of this world. It holds no more pleasure for me. Where do I get more desires? There aren’t any in this world. All the rest is for bestowal, and the desires of this world you received only in order to exist for the time being. From this moment on, you must decide what to do.

All of this is done for our salvation. After all, if the great Light came in, you would sink in such tremendous suffering that you wouldn’t be able to come out of it. You would be buried under desire that you would not be able to fill. It is like the love that is burns you because you can’t have it.

This is how desire will become revealed against the Light illuminating it, and all of your life would be sold out for yet another chase after pleasure that would make you feel even greater emptiness. It is impossible! It can be no more! The plane regarded as “this world” where you can enjoy something for your own sake for some time in order to develop the mind and feelings to perceive spirituality has come to its completion.

From here on, you must find the Light that comes to illuminate the upper layers of desires  for you, the Light that Reforms, the Surrounding Light. This is the not the light of pleasure, but rather the one that discerns and reforms. Then, the light of fulfillment arrives if you align yourself with it by way of the screen and Reflected Light.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/9/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Merge With The Source Of Life

Because of our oppositeness to the Light, we live in the world of suffering and pain, and no matter how we might to escape, we only make it worse for ourselves since we tend to want to withdraw and hide from the truth, so much so that we have no idea about the correct path and corrections that we must perform.

Therefore, only after going through to the end of this painful exile, we finally receive the knowledge, the reminder, that there is a method called the wisdom of Kabbalah, which can connect us with the Light. And then, we will know how, by using it, we can correct our relation with it so that it would give us fulfillment, instead of acting against us and illuminating us from a distance, instilling pain in us!

Beyond this, we don’t have any freewill in this world except to draw the Light that Reforms, which will correct, reform, and unify us with the Light. There isn’t a greater wisdom or science than Kabbalah that helps to realize this action. There is no other means to affect our life and fate. We will not improve our lives with the help of science, culture, or education if we don’t practice them according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, in other words, without connecting ourselves with the source of our lives, the Light.

If you wish for success, it is possible only on one condition: if you draw the Light that will correct you and reform your entire world. And if you attempt to reform the world without the Light, you will only make it worse since you hide from the truth even more, forcing yourself to go through the recognition of evil instead of a good and pleasant path.

But right now we have a unique opportunity to reveal the wisdom of Kabbalah and achieve correction. After all, in all of our long history, we still haven’t started to perform the correction and were only getting ready for it. From this very moment on, the reckoning with us takes full force.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/18/10, “The Teaching of Kabbalah and its Essence”