An Intention Embodied In Action

Question: What is more important in mutual guarantee, the physical obligation (to awaken the friends, telephones, etc.) or an intention about the group with thoughts and intentions?

Answer: An intention about the group with thoughts and intentions is not just important but necessary. But people who think that this is enough are sadly mistaken, because theory without practical action is dead.

So if you can also practically strengthen and increase your participation in gathering the group, then it is a full and final action. An action cannot be completed with only an intention. It is possible to check it only when you embody the intention in the action itself.
[131848]

Yearning For Love

Question: When I feel causeless hatred towards a friend, I cannot figure out how to get out of it.

Answer: Hatred lacks a foundation; it is a spiritual category that manifests in a person without a reason; it is simply because his egoburns in him.

Such issues can only be solved together in a discussion with other friends. The idea is that the correction is realized specifically when a strong rejection appears between us.

Unfounded hatred is a clear and accurate discovery of shattered desires. It is said that rejection became the reason for the destruction of the Second Temple, when instead of connection, solidarity, mutual assistance, and love between people, suddenly intense hatred flared up. And this is what led to and caused the shattering of the collective spiritual Kli (vessel).

So, when such situations like these appear, gather together quickly and try to discuss them in the form of a workshop. First, without any agenda, without touching anyone personally, and without intending for a mandatory solution for the question, which concerns all because manifestations of unfounded hatred exists in each one of us.

It appears all the time for some unknown, inexplicable reasons or without any reason: Well, I cannot stand him, I cannot come to an agreement with him, we don’t understand each other, or something pushes me away from him.

It is necessary to clarify whether there is some reason by gathering into groups of five or ten with friends to discuss the issue. At the same time, I cannot say that I feel dislike someone, but I want to find out why my attitude to him is revealed in this way.
[131851]

A Vessel With A Bottleneck

Question:  Why do those who follow the spiritual path experience the same problems like the rest of the world and have no answer for them?

Answer:  Why do you say that there is no answer? There is an explanation for every problem; our incongruity with the Light, which already should be revealed in us. This is where all problems stem from.

If your desire to receive is less corrected than it should be, the Light that has to appear in the desire to receive is felt as sufferings, problems, pain, and disasters.

The dissimilarity with the desire to receive on the levels of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking nature causes ecological crises: problems with vegetation, crop failure; diseases of animals, of people, and all of humanity.

Your desire to receive is to blame for all that because it hasn’t undergone the right correction yet. It makes no difference what the problem is, they all stem only from the lack of similarity of the vessel to the Light.

Suppose the desire should be 20% corrected by now, but it is only 2% corrected. So 18% is revealed in the form of the Light pressuring the vessel as the posterior of the Light, in the form of sufferings, troubles, and misery.

The word “troubles” (“Tsarot” in Hebrew) stems from the Hebrew word “narrow” (Tsar), and it refers to a narrow place, a bottleneck,because you don’t open your vessel. You don’t have enough Light of Hasadim to expand and to open the vessel, and so the Light is before it pressuring it. You can feel this pressure as troubles, problems, diseases, and disasters.

We have to correct the problem on the same physical level that it appears, and at the same time ask for its correction from Above, from the Creator, this is operating on both planes. Baal HaSulam says that we should go to the doctor to get medicine and follow his or her instructions, but at the same time it should be clear to a person that it is all useless and depends only on the Creator, not on the doctor.
[131878]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/6/14, Writings of Rabash 

A Vessel Suitable For Storing Light

Baal HaSulam, Letter 13: Indeed, I feel all of you together, that today has been replaced for you with tomorrow, and instead of “now,” you say “later.” There is no cure for that but to exert to understand that mistake and distortion—that one who is saved by the Creator is saved only if he needs the salvation today. One who can wait for tomorrow will obtain his salvation after his years, God forbid.

We only need to work on our deficiency. The entire problem is reaching it. And the deficiency that is directed correctly immediately becomes a place for the discovery and absorption of spiritual properties, the Upper Light.

All of our work must be only on deficiencies, on this desire. And the desire must be through equivalence and accommodation to the Light according to all the laws of physics: The vessel and the Light need to match each other according to their frequencies and location. It is impossible to use a sack to store water, or a jar to prepare cement. Everything has its own container, and that is how it is in spirituality; this is a very basic and important condition.

The problem is that we don’t feel that there is no need to work on the Light, which is available in abundance and is in absolute rest, and that we need to work on the vessel, on our deficiency. The deficiency can only be attained through mutual work among us. To the degree that we actively yearn to attain the corrected spiritual state, then to this degree the Surrounding Light will help us to prepare the right request, until it is revealed as Inner Light.

This happened to you due to negligence in my request to exert in love of friends, as I have explained to you in every possible way that this cure is enough to recompense for all your faults. And if you cannot rise to heaven, then I have given you a way to move on earth. So why haven’t you added anything in that work?

The vessel is the collective soul that existed before the shattering of Adam HaRishon. And to the degree that we gather the parts in order to return it to its right form in order to bestow, so we approach performing our correct function.

This is expressed in love of friends, in a mutual connection in order to resemble theCreator, so that the connection between us will be according to spiritual laws: love and mutual guarantee.

Certainly we discover ourselves having characteristics and directions that are opposite this, but then we have something to pray about, meaning to raise MAN. And in an answer, we discover help from Above and fulfillment, as it is written: “The Torah was not given except to those who eat manna (Man),” meaning to those who are nourished by their requests to the Creator.
[131730]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/4/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Bringing A Sacrifice Is Getting Closer To The Creator

The initial essence of the creation is the desire. The desire is actually neutral and can be aimed at any direction, toward itself or toward others, it can be anywhere and in any manner. But when an egoistic intention of in order to receive for one’s self is added to it, it becomes cruel and evil since it is focused not only on the filling for itself but also on the inclination not to give to others.

All of a person’s nature is the evil inclination. It says: “I have created the evil inclination; I have created the Torah as a spice.” The evil inclination is called our desire that has the constant intention of in order to receive for itself.

Rejecting the egoistic use of the desires is a spiritual action called “bringing a sacrifice.” In other words we sacrifice our ego not by annulling it but by annulling the egoistic use of the desires.

Bringing a sacrifice is a person’s ability to actually cut off pieces of his desires on the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature.

All the desires are divided into four parts: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels of nature. Each part has its own manner of the correction of its ego to altruism, tobestowal.

The simplest work is the work with the desires on the still level of nature. The Torah represents the construction of the Tabernacle, the preparation of different objects from gold and precious stones, the use of salt in the food, the water, and everything we obtain from the earth.

All the plants in nature belong to the desires on the level of the vegetative: grass, seeds, cereal, and the food that is prepared from these materials like bread that is made of flour, etc.

The different categories of desires on the animate level are described in the Torah in the form of birds, fish, and animals, and they are already sublime egoistic desires that have to be killed in a certain ritual and the carcass has to be freshened in a special way.

Each of the corporeal desires of a person has to be processed in a special manner so that it can be transformed from an egoistic use to altruistic use. This is what the laws ofKashrut refer to, which means that they are cleaned of the ego.

The last level of the desires is the human desires, when we already have to work on ourselves. This highest intention is called a priest (Cohen), a lower one is called Levi, and an even lower one is called Israel (the masses).

To bring a sacrifice means to change the desires from an egoistic level to an altruistic level. On the other hand it isn’t a sacrifice since in Hebrew the word “Eid” (victim) means getting closer, which means an action which brings us closer to the Creator.

On the whole all the laws and the rules that the Torah presents refer only to the correction of the ego. The main part, the sacrifices (“Kurbanot” – victims), are the levels that describe a person’s getting closer to the Creator and the correction of the ego to altruism—from hatred of others to love of others.

All the spiritual actions are performed inside a person in the group when he is together with friends who share the same ideas and with whom he clarifies the elements of his inner and external behavior: how to cooperate with them correctly and how the group affects each of its members.

Thus, each one, together with the general force of yearning for bestowal and love that is revealed among everyone, gradually reveals such altruistic attributes that can actually raise the group above the egoistic level. This is called the transition from our world to the upper world.
[131842]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 10/24/13

A Pure White Temple Within The Soul

Question: What is the most prominent sign of being in exile?

Answer: We want to reach mutual bestowal and we have no power for this; we want to give contentment to the Creator, and it’s possible to do this only through mutual bestowal between us. Our goal is to build an infrastructure called mutual guarantee. From an inability to do this, we feel ourselves in exile.

Redemption means that our desires are organized, connected, fixed, and linked so that we acquire the form of pure bestowal. This means they take on the form of the Creator, the bestower and loving. We build from ourselves a model, an example, a form similar to the Creator.

There are 125 levels of resemblance like this, 125 portions in which we can resemble the characteristic of bestowal, of love, more and more in all kinds of ways with tighter and tighter guarantee. This is the work of Israel, and that part of it is done in Egypt, in the wilderness, until we reach the construction of the First Temple.

We need to feel all of these states. This is not talking about building a structure from clay and bricks. The construction is done from our substance, from desire, where we correct it and whiten it, and then from that grows a house of Kedusha, the Holy Temple (Beit HaMikdash).
[131761]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/26/14, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Strong Connection With The Group

Question: What does it mean to be very connected to a group in the right way?

Answer: It is called seeing my future, all of the next steps toward the goal, receiving the reward; it is all of my realization that is only in connection with the friends. And friends are not physical faces.

In order to be connected with them, it is not enough to hug and dance together with them; rather, it is necessary to unite into one heart, into one desire.

And this desire needs to be found outside of us, as if the heart goes out of my body and is connected with all the other hearts. If a person has an inclination like this, then through it he can understand what the Kabbalists advise us to do.

All changes in the direction of connection of the hearts will be right, they will naturally, correctly, and appropriately show us the direction of connection.
[131864]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/6/14, Writings of Rabash 

The Psychological Shield Of The Ego

Question: Why do we constantly receive blows after we work well and carry out your advice? Will this process ever come to an end?

Answer: Your complaint is identical to the complaint of the Jews in Egypt who blame Moses: “As soon as you went to Pharaoh, he began to beat us! Don’t go to him anymore; don’t harden his heart; let sleeping dogs lie!”

This is the process, hardening the our evil inclination, as it is written: “A person should always provoke the good inclination over the evil inclination.”

Question: When will it come to an end? Where are we headed?

Answer: I don’t understand why you ask such a question. We are headed towards the state in which we will not ask about the outcome of our actions because we want to reachbestowal. After you overcome this psychological barrier (Machsom), the spiritual world opens up before you.

You will cease to ask about your future, but simply will bestow as if into a void. This will be your pleasure. This inclination will open up a new space, a new dimension, for you. You cannot perceive the spiritual world with your egoistic vessels of “when, where, and how?” It’s right here, but it can be revealed to you only with an opposite inclination. You don’t have the right vessels for it.

Question: So when will the Light finally cut me off my ego?

Answer: When the work becomes the reward for you. There is a psychological barrier here, which doesn’t let you ascend above this demand and to see, to know, to acquire, to be filled with, and to perform actions without expecting any response in return but only in order to bestow. Only this inclination will open up the entrance to the spiritual world for you. But don’t try to perform actions of bestowal in order to open it.

I think that successful dissemination can be helpful. We don’t have any powers and will not have any in the future. We need another very large, broad, and strong belt of people around us who will support us.
[131526]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/01/14, Writings of Rabash