Write It On Your Heart…

Question: How can we organize the mutual cooperation in the group so I will change it and it will change me in return? Are the articles of Rabash enough for us today or do we need to add something to it?

Answer: You should determine what we have to add to the articles of Rabash. Everyone adds something. It’s as if everyone rewrites the entire Torah. The Torah is not a book but actually a person’s whole attitude towards the Creator, towards everything that comes from Above.

A person has to rewrite the Torah, as it says: “Write it on your heart.” He has to write the Torah back from himself to the Creator, about the upper Providence and everything that was created, about everything that descends upon a person from Above and is arranged for him. A person has to respond internally and return it to the Creator. This is called “writing the book of the Torah.”

So everyone is called “a student who renews the words of the Torah,” since he does it by himself, out of his desire and he writes what no one else can write, none of the parts of that infinite desire. Everyone writes by himself.

Therefore, there is the commandment for everyone to write a book of the Torah. In the past, people actually sat down and wrote it.

You are asking if we have to add anything to the articles of Rabash, yet each time you read an article, you understand it differently, it means that you rewrite it, add something to it and write your own article. Every time! All this is written because you work with your desires. Every time you organize your desires differently, it’s all added to the general desire, to the general correction, until all these forms reach the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun); this is called writing.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/13, The Zohar

What Are We Afraid Of?

Baal HaSulam, “Disclosing a Portion, Covering Two”: The secrets of the Torah are revealed only to those who fear His Name, who keep His Glory with their hearts and souls…

Question: Is there a connection between our fears and the trepidation in front of the Creator?

Answer: Our personal fears and the trepidation in front of the Creator are connected through the chain of cause and effect.

The Creator sends corporeal afflictions to us in this material life; all of them are in essence fears. We are afraid of not having something, of not being able to provide for our existence; we worry about our children’s future, etc. Later, due to our studies and under the influence of the Light that Reforms, we gradually rise above our earthly fears and approach a transitional step where we replace the fears of this world with spiritual fear.

We advance due to our material fears; it happens when the time comes. It is a result of our development. This is how all of humanity progresses. However, we tend to advance with the help of the second type of fear. How can we obtain it? How can we start fearing that we won’t be able to please the Creator?

Those whose souls are able to achieve the second kind of fear come to the group and begin advancing. They need to change their individual fears and start worrying whether they are able to help the group, their friends, and through them, the Creator. “I don’t know Him now, but if I get along with my friends, I will definitely get along with Him too.” If people are ready, they are concerned about their group, the general public, anddissemination. They are afraid of whether they are able to aspire to go outside of their borders, beyond their personal interests. If we implement the possibility that is given to us in this world, if we manage to form the format that will eventually let us enter the spiritual realm, it means that we are advancing
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

It Is Time To Build An Incubator

Question: What should I do if I am not built for this work? I have engaged in this work for so long and I have the desire to escape from it all the time.

Answer: You’re still not doing anything. You think that you engage in internal work and that you are advancing, but the advancement is assessed in regard to one’s connection to the group. Now let’s see if you are under the influence of this environment, that you have determined this, and they don’t just impress you automatically.

When you come to the group, it naturally influences you whether you want it or not. You are like a small child who hasn’t learned anything yet. You were just born, and you are taken care of like a baby: diapers, milk, etc. You grow and advance completely unaware that you are totally in the arms of the upper.

But later you are required to participate and connect to your environment: at least to smile at your mother, to reach out to her, to learn something. This means that you must interact with the environment. Do you participate with the environment in anyway, at least like a baby? Do you smile at it? Do you wave your arms and legs with joy like to your mother, when the group approaches?

Our society has to be like a caring mother, or like an incubator in which a person can mature very quickly on the path of “I shall hasten it” and reach the end of correction. There is no other way.

Question: But what can keep me in the group? What if they throw me out?

Answer: We don’t throw anyone out of the group. Even if your egg has not cracked but just lays in the corner of the incubator its whole life. Only if it stinks and begins to spoil and poison our society will we have to throw you out. But as long as you are passive, it isn’t that bad. Even if you are considered a burden on society, we are ready to carry you on our back. Only a person who intends harm has no place among us; everyone else does.

People leave because they don’t listen to what they are told: that spiritual fulfillment is possible only though connection. This connection has to be in the form of an incubator that warms us. Rather than the Creator, the group has to be the good and benevolent for a person. A person cannot advance without an environment, without a group. There is no other way, you either do so or you don’t.

Also there is a good chance for success as there are new opportunities now that no other generation before us had, not since the beginning of humanity in this world. Today we can begin with massive, open dissemination, unlike Baal HaSulam who started to bring people closer very carefully, one by one, mainly from the Orthodox environment, although there were several secular people among his students.

Today we can open the wisdom for all. This means that it is time to build an incubator for the small circle, for the wider circle, and for the whole world. It is our duty to build it. We are the ones who have received the awakening for the Creator, and so we have to build the incubator for all of humanity. This means that we should be the transition, a kingdom of priests.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/23/13, The Book of Zohar

Our Leader: It’s The Ego

Question: What role does the ego play in the transition to a new formation, considering that it has finally evolved?

Answer: It will help us in that it shows us where and how to add the opposite force of good so that they will develop in a mutually balanced manner.

The ego is our leader in that it shows what must be done. The egoistic desires in every case will determine the activities of the person, we don’t remove anything here in any way, and we don’t discard what we created. We only add a positive component to everything that is now gradually dying and animate.

Question: You said that the altruistic force is a creative force. Can the ego also create?

Answer: It can create in a wonderful way. See what it did with us? All this is for the good. There is nothing wrong in nature.

This is the program of nature that we carry out unconsciously under the influence of its forces. Every time that we feel it is bad for us in a given state, we begin to move towards the next state, towards a better state. The ego subconsciously shows us that it will be good for us here, and there, no. It directs us from within, telling us what to do.

The ego manages all of our strength, all the characteristics, and leads us forward precisely and sharply. Sometimes we fall into something, suppose in the building socialism or something else, but this is only to understand the ramifications of the blind alley, and after that we continue to develop further.
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From KabTV’s “An Integral World” 10/24/2013

Two Partners: Egoism and Altruism

Question: In the past, at the time of the transition from one system to another, did the ego also require altruism or not?

Answer: Egoism nourishes itself by always conquering something. It is like a cancerous tumor that gradually grows while not yet being apparent. And now it is grown to the last stage and is beginning to devour itself.

Until the ‘80s, all of the systems that we constructed served to extend and expand a particular goal. We flew into space, to the stars; we went deep into the bowels of the earth; we built great cities, and we created new technologies. We developed under the influence of one and only one force, and we thought that this would continue forever.

If we were to continue to develop further in this way, we would advance ourselves only externally and not internally. Human development was done in a mechanical, technological manner: Instead of two hands, I would have had twenty; instead of seeing for a distance of two kilometers, I would have seen two hundred thousand kilometers ahead.

In this case, the human became an appendage of a machine, an appendage of a computer. So today the egoistic system begins to work more and more against him. The human has become unnecessary to it.

We have grown to such a state where we must discover the meaning of our existence. Now, for many people, in particular among the youth, the reason for living, the aspiration for some kind of goal, has disappeared. “What is there to strive for? I exist comfortably, I don’t need children, a family, or serious work; what will this give me? It is better if I sit somewhere with friends, have fun. What else is there to live for; what is the reason for living? I will play a little and die, like everyone”.

Therefore the question now is, either to give a person a motivation for living, or drugs. And here Kabbalah or the method of integral education show people a completely different way: to get from nature a second anti-egoistic power. It is precisely this power that created and developed the ego so that we would consciously get it from nature and could mutually manage the two forces of our development.

One of them can inspire us forward with good, through the goal that shines from afar. And the second is like a developmental steamroller that chases me, and I flee from it like that poor coyote in the cartoons.

Question: But even the altruistic force requires egoism, at least in this stage?

Answer: Yes, for this, the ego develops. And now it shows that if we don’t balance it through the altruistic force, it will devour us, like a cancerous tumor in the human body that devours the body and in the end kills itself.

What does a cancerous tumor mean? This is a disrupted program of the development of the body, of the functioning of its cells, where they begin to proliferate beyond their contained space and have an opposite effect.

In principle, every cell has the possibility of cancerous development, but they are always found in harmony between them, in a relative balance between positive and negative forces. But when one of them becomes greater, then another either disappears or there is a disruption in the polarity between them, and in this imbalance destructive development appears.

It is the same thing in society as well. We should begin quickly, through a second positive force, to balance the entire human society that has become a cancerous tumor. And this is the remedy for its recovery.

Unfortunately, at the time of healing cancer, we are satisfied with suppressing the egoistic development of the cells through various kinds of short radiation, thereby killing them. This is not a cure. It is not necessary to kill human society or to do anything else with it. You just need to add the second developmental force to it.
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From Kab TV’s “An Integral World” 10/24/2013

The Process Of Societal Decay

Question: The present state of humanity is a typical picture of the degradation of all of humanity. If we take the Roman Empire as an example, there the system deteriorated and broke apart so much that every part worked only for itself and for the whole, and therefore, the commands of the authorities lacked power. The terrible process of societal decay began. And now we are speaking about a much larger scale that humanity has never experienced.

Answer: And even now this is happening without sword and spear, just as it was then! If we see humanity as some kind of unified system, various societies developed at different rates, but in general, it was a collective system within which individual units were damaged. But the system was always restored, whereas today the state is such that no healthy societies are left because the crisis touches all of humanity in general and damages the entire system.

The Kabbalists predicted these phenomena on a completely scientific basis. If we take our ego as the basic force of nature from which all social and even natural laws are derived, then in the end, the ego must grow to a state like this where it subjugates everything that exists, meaning that it will destroy all the connections between people.

And while in the beginning it acts to create these connections, yet after it arranges them, it reaches personal satisfaction. This happened in the mid ‘50s of the previous century, when everyone thought that humanity was entering a state of the infinite development of the consumer society in which everything was for the good of the person: schools, universities, culture, science, the conquest of space.

Various societies encountered this in different ways, yet they specifically wanted to attain this goal. Egoism attracted us towards this type of development. And as a result of this, when we systematically connected and organized reciprocal worldwide global connections, we immediately began to die, like the Roman Empire.

To date, we certainly see that we don’t have the ability to use these connections correctly. They all act not only against the person himself but also against the entire society, and destroys them. In this connection it’s possible to see the nature of the cancerous growth in the body clearly as it kills everything that nourishes it and in the end itself dies.
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From KabTV’s “An Integral World” 10/24/2013

A Magnifying Glass For The Upper Light

Question: What does it mean to try to connect while reading The Book of Zohar?

Answer: Reading The Zohar is the time when you shouldn’t use your mind but your soul. Now you have to think about how we should connect in order to be like a magnifying glass by which we draw the sun rays in order to light something that is under the glass.

How can we concentrate and focus on this point? If we do, we will feel the Light that influences us going through us, illuminating our desire to receive and changing it. Then the desire will restrict itself, acquire a Masach (screen) and will begin to work.

Our whole work is done by this magnifying glass that is becoming more powerful. Our work is in the growing concentration of the group in quantity and quality so that a stronger Light will come and bring us to a more substantial and more qualitative connection. Then we will discover the spiritual state in the connection between us. What we discover is called the spiritual world.

Question: Do I build this magnifying glass by my efforts or is it created by everyone’sefforts?

Answer: By all our efforts. The magnifying glass itself isn’t important. What’s important is the central point in the magnifying glass, in which all the rays of Light connect and descend through it.

Question: How do we know that all our efforts are successful?

Answer: According to the result: You you will receive the desired change, as it says: “I labored and I found.” The exertion is in the connection between us, in one heart and inmutual guarantee, and the finding is when we discover between us the first attribute of bestowal called the first spiritual level.

Question: What will change in me after this change?

Answer: You will not only want to bestow but will also be able to bestow.
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From the 2nd part of the the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/08/13, The Book of Zohar

Now It’s Your Turn To Be King And To Rule

All changes occur in the desire to receive while the Upper Lightis in a state of absolute rest. At the same time, we know that everything comes from Above and that there is none else besides Him, the Creator, and that He alone decides and acts. So how can it be that one time we say that everything is determined by the Light and another time that everything depends on the vessel, on our efforts, on the desire, on our exertion, and our work?

We can see it in two ways: from the perspective of the Light or from the perspective of the desire. But it’s clear that all the attributes and the software that are part of the Light operate in a concealed manner on the desire and activate it. This is called the “force of the operator on the operated.”

We can assess the Light that operates the desire according to its actions in the desire. This means that all our revelations start from the vessel, from the desire. I don’t reveal the Creator who operates on me, but rather, within my vessels, I discover the phenomena by which I guess that He operates inside me.

The Light is always there and I only discover its influence. Then it seems that my desires are full and that they begin to illuminate like sparkling Lights, but they only reveal the Light that is already in them. So it’s better to look at the vessels from the side, since it helps us focus on the work correctly and not wait for something to come from Above from the Light.

The Upper Light doesn’t stop its illumination on the lower even for a moment. This means that its influence doesn’t change because it’s good and benevolent for all. The force doesn’t change, but only the vessels do under the influence of this force. I must say so since it obliges me to take care of my vessels, to think about the connection with thefriends, and to absorb additional spiritual deficiencies from them.

Thanks to the additional deficiency that I receive from the connection, by the greaterimportance of the goal, I demand the Light! I don’t ask it to illuminate on me more, but rather to open up my desire, and then the Light can influence me more.

My desire opens up and the Light remains the same. This is a significant difference in approach. Do we just pray and ask for mercy or do we know that everything depends on our work? Our desire is a result of our work and of the connection between us. This is how we seem to operate the Light, but, in fact, we only open the channels in our desire to receive in which the Light can be revealed.

If I speak from the perspective of the vessels, I oblige myself to constantly worry about them. I don’t wait for the Light to change, and I don’t shed a tear when it doesn’t operate on me and doesn’t fill me, and I don’t blame it for what it did to me and to the whole world in the past. This means that I don’t see the Light as responsible for everything as people commonly do when they make a mistake. After all, nothing depends on the Light because “He has given a law that cannot be broken.” He has given a person everything, like a scepter, so that he will be king and rule. So everything depends only on me and there is no one else I can count on.

Therefore, we must go out to disseminate and support the group and not be materialists and mystics who count on some hidden upper force. This is the great difference between the different religions and Kabbalah, that is, between beliefs and science. In Kabbalah all the tools are in our hands since we know that our desire determines everything and that the Creator doesn’t decide anything; He actually gives us full control.

So why do Kabbalists say that everything depends on the Creator? If we discover that everything is up to us, we will discover that everything is indeed up to Him, according to the work that we do. Therefore, it says, “I have exerted and I have found, believe!” But this is actually something the world isn’t ready to accept. Only by our efforts can we reach anything, and otherwise we can keep on praying forever. At the same time we say, “if only one could pray all day.” This means that we should reach a deficiency in our prayer that will be constantly renewed thanks to our work on the connection between us. So the prayer is the work of the heart, above our desire. This is a critical point and it is the foundation of all the spiritual work. This is the bone of contention that distinguishes the wisdom of Kabbalah from all the other beliefs.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/13, Talmud Eser Sefirot