How Can Truth Grow From A Double Lie?

A person lives only by the desire in the heart. It makes no difference what he says out loud, or whether before reading The Book of Zohar he suddenly begins to think about what he should pray for or what he should think about.

We are before a system that can give us anything we want. We only have to clarify what we can receive from it. I can receive from it something that can harm me by bringing me all the goodness and corporeal pleasures and thereby keeping me away from the goal and “shutting me up.” This is called the “potion of death,” which will fill me with pride and make me receive everything that I lack in this world, meaning to fill my ego.

Or I can ask for something that is detached from this world, which is opposite to it and is not so real—and I will actually receive that. After all, this force can do anything: He created the evil inclination, and He can also create the good inclination and perform the shift between the two worlds: both from top down and from the bottom up. It all depends only on me, only on what I ask for.

So a person has to think, and to take into account that he always raises a prayer because there is always a desire in his heart. This desire either says: “I want to sleep so leave me alone,” or it can be a desire for different nonsense that is in his subconscious. After all, the Reshimot (informational genes) are always evoked and fulfilled in some form.

A person can also take things seriously and want to find out what to ask for; it is all in his hands. A person must know that he is always under the influence of the Light, but now that influence is more intense and strong, and he has the opportunity to advance even in the opposite form of the created being.

It all depends on his deficiency. If he has a deficiency, if he is really somewhat part of the special actions of the Light, which can raise him—then it is fulfilled. And if not, then the Light works on him in the opposite manner.

If people don’t pray with the right intention, meaning if they don’t ask some purposeful action of the Light, they still are under the influence of the Light. This is because the surrounding Light operates on everyone and the Reshimot are constantly evoked in us. The Light operates on the Reshimot and so humanity advances.

But we have reached the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to bring ourselves under the influence of the Light. The Light can take us back to even greater evil, to the potion of death, and it can bring us to a state called the “elixir of life.” At the moment, the elixir of life seems like the worst potion of death, but I have to prepare myself and make it seem differently to me, to convince myself somehow that it is so. Even if I pray falsely, the Light will still influence me correctly.

There is a kind of an agreement between the Light and me. The Light passes through a system of concealment, which is broken on purpose in order to be adapted to me, and so there is a certain lie in the system, just like in me. Therefore, it understands me and even if I ask for myself, because I cannot ask otherwise, it will understand me and cover up my lie by its lie.

The same shattering that happened Above, and then was corrected in the form of the right system in the world of Atzilut, operates against the shattering in me, against the egotistic Reshimot that cannot ask for anything except what is good and pleasant for my egoism. But if I ask in a certain way to resemble the lie inherent in the upper system, then from a lie about a lie, the truth comes out because then we understand each other.

Since I cannot ask differently, the system adapts itself to me. Although I don’t ask for true bestowal because I can only enjoy bestowal in my vessels of reception, the system understands me because the Reshimot come from it, and so it evokes me; it prepares the correction and the fulfillment for me, and all I have to do is to find out what is going on. This clarification doesn’t seem like clarification: It seems to me that I am the one who does that, who gathers all the evil inclination and brings it to prayer, but actually it isn’t so, and there is nothing that I do here except for making a finer and more sensitive clarification of what is going on.

Thus, we are under the control of the system which operates us both internally and externally, as it says: “Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before.” This whole system is called the system of the world of Atzilut, and it comes from the upper Light, from The Zohar. It is about this system, about this power, that The Book of Zohar tells us.

Let’s hope that we have the correct requests and not artificial ones.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/16/12, The Zohar

Rejoice At Working Twice As Hard

There is a rule: “if you leave Me one day I shall leave you for two.” This is similar to the rule of “to reveal a portion and conceal two”… it is a preliminary condition for the creation of the vessel.

A person is intentionally given the option to fail, which is called “if you leave Me one day,” and then he has to work to correct himself for two days. This means that he leaves the level he was on, falls, and sins. But he falls to an even lower level: not to the egoistic level that is the inverse of the level of bestowal he had reached, but to an even lower level. Not to minus one (-1), but to minus two (-2), and then he has to ascend to the second level, to plus two (+2).

When he finally arrives to +2, he falls to -3, and then he has to rise to +3. We progress in this way; all these actions benefit our advancement. When we fall, we have to work twice as hard.

The main thing is not to lose the persistence, not to stand still because you see that you are not getting any reward. Each time we need to find greater reward that is more and more detached from corporeal life. We should learn to measure the reward in relation to the common good: to what extent can I work and the others receive.

I have to make efforts that the reforming Light will bring me closer to this attitude in which I will receive more and more fuel to work for the benefit of all the others and not my own. This is how my advancement is measured.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/18/12, Shamati #108

The First Glimpse Of Light

Question: Baal HaSulam writes in “The Freedom” that the method of Kabbalah is intended for the purification of Israel, and this refers to the recognition of evil. How is one connected to the other?

Answer: Do you really achieve something good by recognizing your own evil? Of course, because this has led you to purification, you have become better, more receptive; you feel more, understand more, you permeate the matter of your desire. Before it would come down to good or bad sensations, and you had no knowledge of anything else. You would simply respond to stimuli like a very primitive animal. Just like a frog’s leg automatically contracts under the influence of an electric impulse.

Now you have questions: “Why do I do this? Who does this come from? What is it for? Is it for the good or the bad?” You rise above your nature by analyzing the situation, and in some way it’s the same as coming out of your nature. Like a worm in an apple, you start making your way towards the light.

Imagine a red, juicy apple, and you’re inside of it. And an opening leading to the exterior appears. Even if you haven’t yet gone through it, you already begin to distinguish that there is light there, and it is dark here. Differentiating between them becomes your recognition of evil.

This is an enormous achievement amid the size of creation, which serves as our “apple”…..
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/5/12 “The Freedom”

Grateful Clay In The Good Hands Of The Sculptor

We start from the shattering. Without it we would be just like the inanimate, vegetative, and animate levels of nature that act by obeying the one force that motivate and operate them from within. But because of the shattering, spiritual attributes have penetrated the desire to receive for oneself in their opposite form.

All of creation advances under the direct influence of the Light, but man advances under its opposite influence. All this is so that he will be able to understand that he needs to adapt to the force that motivates him by himself.

The more he advances, the more he feels the pressure upon him. Eventually he has to fully “format” himself, it order to get the right form. In the meantime, he gradually grows in his desire, in an opposite way from the desired form.

It takes a long time until a person finally begins to feel the pressure inside him in different directions, which molds him like raw material. If he tries to raise his sensitivity, he feels how the Creator works on him. No matter what external activities he has, there is an internal life in which he constantly tries to feel how the Creator pressures him in every direction through different feelings.

It is like a mother who is constantly by her son’s side, telling him what he should or shouldn’t do, correcting his every action. In the same way a person constantly feels internally how the Creator operates on him, as if he is some soft piece of clay in the hands of a sculptor pushing him gently, but firmly letting him feel his pressure. But he has to want this pressure.

It is somewhat difficult and unpleasant, but on the other hand, a person understands that the work that is being done on him cannot be stopped and he wants it to continue. This is the initial feeling of a person who begins to feel inside himself the actual work of the Creator on him.

We can feel this bestowal inside us because after the shattering there are different forces and different influences inside us, as a copy of the spiritual actions. These are potential actions that exist in the general soul that wanted to perform them in order to bestow. But after the shattering it all became “in order to receive,” and now it exists is in us in an opposite, egoistic, form. But it is thanks to this that we can identify the Creator’s work on us.

This is why a person’s behavior becomes opposite from the Creator’s actions. There is a conflict: a resistance on the side of a person, on the side of his clay, and the pressure on the side of the Creator. Thus they beat each other and a person feels the pressure and the beating as the Creator tries to show him what is wrong with him.

Eventually he begins to justify the internal pressure and goes along with the Creator’s actions, wanting them, like a horse that obeys his rider. He feels the leadership as a revelation of love and justifies it. Thus he acquires faith and connects to the Creator. He moves to the sculptor’s side. Although he still feels sufferings, they are felt in the clay, whereas he already identifies with the intention, with the one who creates all the different forms in him.

He connects to the hands of the craftsman that creates and sculpts him. He actually wants the craftsman to affect him so, and increasingly yearns for him, until he adheres to the actions of the upper one. They adhere in the same motion, the same intention, and the suffering becomes a pleasure.

All the sufferings that the clay felt disappear and a person finds himself above it, in his intention, and sees that the clay is meaningless. He agrees with the Creator’s work on him and understands that “only good and grace shall pursue me.” He rises above his feelings and adheres to the intention of the Maker, to the attitude of the Creator, and reaches complete adhesion with Him.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/12, Writings of Rabash

A New Paradigm Of The Universe

Today’s development of humanity brings us to a very interesting conclusion: If previously we dedicated at least ten hours a day to work, today our attitude towards that must change at its very root. We shouldn’t look for work. Each person has to work only to the extent required to secure a normal and dignified quality of life.

That isn’t some bare minimum, but precisely a standard accepted as necessary. We don’t strive to procure above this level, understanding that this is the only way to enter into equilibrium with the surrounding nature. A balance between the force of reception and the force of bestowal—the amount each receives from society is the amount he gives back to it—balances us, our entire human community, in relation to nature.

As a consequence, a large amount of a person’s time will get freed up. The resulting void has to be filled through achievement of this very harmony. A person has to develop by interacting and uniting with other people. And the fact that seven-to-eight hours of people’s time a day will become freed up and remain unfilled is something that’s been set in motion in advance by nature’s program. It’s not accidental that we have developed our technology, communications, and international trades and services to such an extent that we can, while working literally two hours a day, supply ourselves with all that is necessary.

This is set by nature, and we have to view it as objective reality. The freed time is specifically intended for us to bring ourselves into the necessary balance. Then we will reveal an entirely new level of existence in nature: the level of its plan, the upper governance. We will start feeling the mechanics that governs the entire universe, including us.

We must explain this to people and for some amount of time to lead them towards the new outlook on life. This is the modern paradigm that people need to understand and get used to. They need to change absolutely all of their thoughts, plans, and attitude towards life, the world, and everything else. In other words, the most important ideal, the most supreme value should be “we”—the achievement of unity between us and balance with nature.
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From a “Talk on Integral Education” 12/12/11

Inseparable Friends With Very Sharp Teeth

Question: Which desires are we supposed to reveal when we connect? Why do I need to see the desires to receive (AHP) if I am not able to use them?

Answer: Every one of us is like a cogwheel—saw-toothed. My desires to bestow, Galgalta ve Eynaim, are inside the wheel, and the teeth on the outside are my desires to receive, AHP. I connect with others through these desires to receive.

I only desire bestowal, Hafetz Hesed, within my Galgalta ve Eynaim. In other words, I need nothing, and there is nothing I could do with it.

The Galgalta ve Eynaim is the condition of my presence in the system without causing it any harm. I possess this power of resistance against my egoistic desire.

The Galgalta ve Eynaim are not just small desires of small power, (Aviut 0, 1, 2). They represent the fact that I can provide all of my 620 desires with an intention for the sake of bestowal, like Bina. I do not work with these desires, and I do not wish to use them for my own sake.

When I make a calculation for my entire vessel, desire, without wishing to receive for my own sake, I place a screen, Masach, in front of me. This refers to being inside the desires to bestow, Galgalta ve Eynaim.

This is not a restriction. This is because I simply refuse to receive during a restriction. Here, I feel my 620 desires, and I say “no” in response to every desire because I would rather unite with the upper one. Connection and the group, through which I will attain the Creator, are more important to me. However, I feel all these desires, and this means being inside the Galgalta ve Eynaim.

If I also can work with these desires and connect to the upper one even more strongly, to employ these desires to receive the AHP, the teeth, and use them to grab on and connect with someone, instead of simply not getting in anyone’s way, this means that I work with the receiving Kelim, the AHP.
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From a Lesson 12/23/11, “Study of the Ten Sefirot”

My Present Self And My Desired Self

Question: In the article “The Peace,” Baal HaSulam wrote that nature punishes man if he doesn’t implement its laws. But man is born egoistic and is not able to implement them!

Answer: There are many ways to word this question. First all of, what kind of Creator is there if he created us with so many defects and still punishes us for them? How can such a thing be? Isn’t it like beating a baby who was just born with some defect? Did He do this on purpose so that He would have an opportunity to punish us? Is the meaning of this to enjoy our despicableness and sufferings?

It is here we need to understand that the Creator doesn’t correspond with our present logic. The Creator gives us the possibility to complete ourselves. He created us at the level of beast. I am called, “man,” a name from my future state, and not a name from my present state.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah everything is named according to “future achievements.” For example, we are called, “Kabbalists” even though we have not yet received the upper Light with the intention for bestowal and we still are not in the spiritual worlds. But we are attracted to this, and work for this, and already now call ourselves with this future “title.”

This being so, why do we suffer from lack of self-completeness? It is because otherwise we wouldn’t complete it.

The Creator created us at the low, animal level, and we need to add to this the level of man, similar to the Creator. We need to do this by ourselves, through achieving, recognizing the quality, and valuing this status. This has been imposed specifically on us. Since if from the beginning, the Creator created everything by Himself, then there wouldn’t be any benefit from this creation. What reason is there to create a world where He controls everything and His creatures have no free choice in anything? That would be like doing nothing.

The Creator intentionally created us as we are: We are not complete; we need to feel that, to deeply sense that. Afterwards, we need to understand by what means we can complete ourselves, what we are really missing in order to add the Creator’s nature to ours? And then the animal in us is not taken into account and remains only as a basis that can be turned to. Afterwards, with the acquisition of the form of man, it disappears, and man detaches from it. The benefit is found within this entanglement in order to grow, and then afterwards to exit it and no longer be in need of it. Thus we are in need of the physical world, for this “bubble,” as long as we grow. And when we have grown, the physical world will disappear.

But we need to acquire the attribute of the Creator by ourselves. For this we need feelings; thus, gradually the level of the evil inclination is strengthened in me, the recognition of evil. I feel sufferings, aspirations, and pressures. All of this is in order to awaken me to the spiritual work. Together with this, the Creator does not punish me, but gradually, bit by bit, He shows me that I still haven’t received His form.

Let’s suppose, now, according to my plan of development, I should have already gotten 10% of the attribute of bestowal from the Creator, meaning exiting from the Egypt in me, detaching from egoism, rising above it in restriction, and beginning to process 10% of my desires for bestowal. But since I have not done that, these unexecuted assignments of mine press on me and I feel them as suffering.

It is not the Creator who puts pressure on me, but those forces that are found between the “I” of now and the desired “I,” the person I should already be. The gap between these two, gives me the feeling of the crisis, the feeling of suffering. The Creator only provides the creature with the initial push, from the beginning to the end. And I understand this process as a temporary space where I move from one end to the other in the process of my receiving the form of the Creator.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/23/11, “The Peace”

A New Control

Question: When we look at our life, we see that we have no control over it. How should we relate to this reality?

Answer: Actually we do have control. It all depends on our approach.

In this world, I am in a kind of a “bubble.” I keep the laws in this world and try to fulfill my desires. Eventually I work out the relations with the world. I have studied it in depth, I have created many technologies, and I feel that everything is fine. Apparently I should be satisfied with the world because after ages of development, I control it.

Suddenly something new comes up: New forces arrive and I discover that I cannot succeed in anything. I have built many systems in this world: family, work, education, science, etc. Everything “ticked like clockwork,” everything seemed perfect, and suddenly it seems that everything has become bad.

What happened? It doesn’t make sense. We know so much; we have the brains; we have been through so much, so what’s the problem? Are we really so foolish that we don’t learn from past experience? Are we destroying our future? Why are we getting divorced without thinking about our kids? Why aren’t we aspiring to advance? Why are we ready to destroy everyone around us only so that our neighbors will be worse off than we are? What is going on?

It is simple. We are not to blame. Today another form of control is being revealed, a new sphere of another nature that controls us. If it weren’t for this new control, we could live a wonderful life. But it has been revealed, and now we have a problem. We are not opposite from the laws of this world but from the laws of the upper world. They influence us and we are miserable, unable to escape it.

In our world we always managed somehow and we aspired to advance, to know more, to understand more, to feel more, and to develop. Eventually we meant to subdue this whole world. But today we discover something that we don’t know and that we have no control over. Like kids, we face this uncertainty afraid to move so that things won’t get any worse. We see this in the world’s leaders and decision makers who don’t know what to do. For every problem there are endless opinions and no one has a solution.

The reason is that a new leadership has been revealed. How will we manage with it? How will we manage with its forces? We are perplexed and we feel bad.

This feeling doesn’t come from the Creator, but from our lack of adapting to the laws of the upper nature. Today we have to harmonize with them. We have grown for a long time and have finally reached the beginning of the Machsom (the barrier). The crisis is the beginning of the Machsom for the whole world.

In the group, we transcend it a bit sooner from our own will, aspiring forward. We have a “point in the heart” (*), we understand and feel that there is something else and we want to break into it.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/23/11, “The Peace”