A Recipe For An Exquisite Prayer

Question: There are moments during the reading of The Zohar when it’s difficult to perceive the text and then it’s easier to stay inintention. But what can I do in a different state, when during my studies I feel excitement and joy?

Answer: We are going through various states until we form the correct request. It includes a variety of components. It’s possible to compare it with a delicious dish that has dozens of ingredients.

We don’t need to keep all these components in our head, our mind, because they accumulate and line up in us, and what has been built is in you. You shouldn’t worry about it; you take care of other things, as a chef preparing a dish who automatically knows what to add and what needs his attention.

Since our vessel, Kli, is a desire, not reason, then a habit becomes second nature. So, you are not worried about what is already included in the desire, but rise above it to other, more advanced concerns.
[99030]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/13, The Zohar

Do I Raise My Head To Look At A Friend?

Question: Is it possible to hasten the awakening of the point in the heart in a person?

Answer: Yes, it is possible in two ways, but first I want to explain something: People in whom the point in the heart has not awakened yet belong to the level of the “nations of the world” or AHP. Those in whom the sparks have already awakened are called “Israel,” which means that they yearn straight to the Creator (Yashar-El). They are attracted upward and have to take care of whoever is below, so the “points in the heart” can be awoken by two actions only:

1. An external action—by disseminating our materials, integral education, books, films, etc.

2. An internal action—by the connection among us, which influences everyone else even if they are not aware of it through the system in which we are all connected.

Question: Can this drawing illustrate the external and the internal work in the group?

Answer: Yes, it can. The upper part (in red) is the work of the points in the heart of the group, while in the lower part (in blue) are all the desires to receive of the group. All this belongs to the same “body” of the group.

Question: This means that on the one hand, I work with the friend and see him as my reflection and correct his attributes in me, and on the other hand, I tell him frankly: “Hey! You are doing something wrong…”

Answer: No, this isn’t the spiritual work. I don’t need to correct the friend’s attributes in me, since if he is a friend, it means that the Creator is behind him. So I look up to him and to me he seems perfect, corrected. If I see that there is something wrong in him I immediately attribute it to myself.

So I don’t have any complaints about the friend. On the contrary, I only have complaints about myself.

On the whole, I have to constantly show the friends a high spirit, confidence and joy in the spiritual path, and also to worry about the group internally so that through me the friends will receive the Light that Reforms.
[99034]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“

Moving Forward Fueled By The Group

Question: I don’t understand how a person can despair of his own powers and cry out if I simply feel tired of everything and throw it all aside when things get tough? Where should I stop and feel despair?

Answer: We don’t know in advance where we should stop. If the outcry is planned, then it isn’t a cry of despair. A cry of despair has to come from inside you without any prior planning as one sees that he has no other choice. If you feel confused and are too tired and don’t know which way to go, it is an indication that you don’t feel that the goal is important.

Now the goal doesn’t seem important to you, and you don’t understand why you are making such efforts. Once you were full of energy and chased different pleasures and wasted your powers. What nonsense does a person do during his lifetime and all just to feel some fleeting pleasure? Sometimes you lie on the couch and don’t want to get up since there is nothing to get up for, and sometimes you get up and run, losing your head, ready to do anything.

It all depends on how important you feel the goal is, which is the main thing we should attain. The importance of the goal is the importance of bestowal, the importance of actions that are far from self-interest, which I cannot perform since I am not motivated to and have no fuel to perform them. How can I do something in which there is nothing for me? My body cannot move in such a case. Our whole world works only on the energy of the desire to receive, that receives a filling, pleasure, reward. But if I don’t see a reward, I cannot do anything.

Thus the Creator gets close to me and takes away my last powers to do anything. The attribute of bestowal comes close to me, and I don’t feel that I am motivated to do something, I actually cannot move.

Fortunately the attribute of bestowal doesn’t dress in the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature; otherwise, all the electrons, all the molecules, all the protein matter would stop and my body would freeze and become motionless; it would die, and disappear. Luckily the attribute of bestowal gradually comes closer and is dressed only in the “speaking” level in me.

But the moment it gets close to my shattered egoistic desire, I immediately feel that I am losing my energy, the fuel, the power, the motivation. So what can I do? The Creator’s getting closer at this point is meant to deprive me of the egoistic motivation and to force me, having no choice, to turn to the group. From it I will receive the impression as to the importance of connection, advancement, the greatness and the importance of the goal. I will be able to work by using the group’s fuel.

All this is necessary in order to help me adhere to the group and start bestowing upon it. By such actions I am incorporated in the group and I receive its values. I want to be with everyone because I respect them and see them as my group. They help me and they seem great and important. A person submits to the environment and has to make special efforts to be incorporated in it.

To the extent that I am incorporated in the environment, I receive a unique quality. It is a special chance that doesn’t exist in any method except the wisdom of Kabbalah. A miracle happens, a special power that influences me as a result of my preparation, and it corrects the shattered vessels in me.

These shattered vessels symbolize my readiness for correction. The Light that operates and influences them corrects them. This is called a healing action, like it says: “a remedy for one’s flesh.” Then I really begin to respect and to value bestowal, I suddenly discover in me respect and appreciation for this attribute and want it to be dressed in me. I want to annul myself and to connect with others. Suddenly I have such thoughts and desires that are not typical of my nature at all. But now I suddenly feel such an unnatural yearning and I understand that it is a result of the influence of the Light on me. So we advance.

Without a group, there is no way to receive the Light that Reforms, since it comes from the upper system, through the teacher, through the group, through the books until it reaches a person. There has to be a chain.

The group is not in the spiritual world yet or may be partly in it. The teacher is in contact with the souls of the Kabbalists that preceded him, with his teachers, and a person connects to the group through the books, dissemination, and working together, and thus connects to the goal, by ensuring himself a connection with the source of the Light.
[99021]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/27/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

The Teacher Gives Enough Attention To Everyone

The usual claim students have regarding the teacher is that he doesn’t give them enough attention, which they feel that they deserve. But the matter is the lack of vessels on the part of the students, as a result of which they cannot absorb more and so they don’t feel that they receive even more than they need, but on the other hand, they cannot manage to wake up by themselves.

The teacher should not come to wake up the students. It won’t help, since they receive the awakening from Above. I go to a place where people are awake and ready, and then I can help them organize and connect more strongly. But first they have to make their own efforts.

A student doesn’t understand that he doesn’t have the vessel to receive what the teacher gives him. You don’t have to wait for me to come and wake you up. It is impossible to wake it up that way if you haven’t prepared a deficiency in advance. The moment you are ready for that, of course I will come. [98840] From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/27/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

A Covenant For Eternity

Rabash, “You Stand Today, All of You”:He says, “I do my part, and I agree that the Creator will give me what He wants, and I have no criticism.” Then he is rewarded with making a covenant, as mentioned above. In other words, the connection remains permanently because the Creator made a covenant with him for all eternity.

Making a covenant with the Creator and friends is a very important condition in our work because primarily this accelerates time. The surrounding environment commits to me and I commit to the environment. And then even when the desire disappears, I will have to continue in the work. This is precisely for what the covenant is intended.

The covenant is made for those times when we don’t want to connect. At such times, when we don’t have an inclination, attraction, or the drive to perform actions that advance us on the path, then the covenant agreement has to work, precisely during the descents.

So it turns out that a person must act despite everything. He gets support from the environment, as if he invested money in some fund beforehand, and now he gets it back. A covenant is an agreement about mutual responsibility.

When he is capable, meaning in states of ascent, then he invests himself, bringing everyone inspiration and the importance of the goal. And when he is incapable of this, when he’s in a descent, he gets back what he invested. It works like a battery that stores energy and afterwards releases it so that we get filled by one or the other. It helps a person, like a rectifier of an alternating current, even switching states in minus to plus, to positive work, to “direct current.”

“You Stand Today, All of You” symbolizes that the ascents and descents of every person, and likewise the ascents and descents of the relationships between people, and between man and Creator, all of this has to be “aligned” so that one constant state will be made. [98831] From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/13, Writings of Rabash

A Prayer That Reaches Heaven

Rabash, “What Is a Ladder that is on the Ground and Its Head Reaches Heaven”: A person should know that the Creator hears his prayer. This means that we have to clearly acknowledge the fact that each of our requests or desires is incorporated in the general system, and all our feelings are a result of the general system. If we make an effort, then it naturally influences the whole system, since everything is connected. But this connection is concealed from us so we have to attain information about it and the feeling that all of reality is connected to one upper system that is called the “Creator” or “There is none else besides Him.”

This system receives all the signals that come from us: both our natural instinctive evolution and the additional influences of society that are above our natural development. Everything is included in the system, and it responds to this appeal: “the Creator hears a person’s prayer.”

And what he sees is that now he is in a worse state than when he didn’t pray to overcome the desire to receive, which is an answer from Above to his prayer. We cannot properly determine when in fact we really are asking from Above and when we receive a response. While it may seem to us that we are praying and asking, it’s not we who are praying and asking. We were simply given such a desire from Above, and we feel how it goes through us. This prayer is not on our account.

So a person shouldn’t say that the Creator doesn’t listen to his prayer. He should rather say that the answer came from Above, and is not what a person prepares, but what is prepared for him from Above, which is for his own good, and he should know that. It is clear from Above when to answer a person and what to give him: which thoughts or desires. He has no freewill here.

Which means that a person should know how far he is from bestowal, and that every part of his body is against it. And a person asks the Creator for something that there is not one part in his body that agrees to what he is asking of the Creator.So how can he ask for that? And then a person sees something new, which he didn’t know before he began to ask from the Creator, that he should be given the power to overcome his body, so that he would be able to act only in favor of the Creator and not for his own sake. A person sees that there is no point in these requests. …and the new recognition that a person attains is that he sees that the body doesn’t agree to pray for the annulment of the desire to receive for its own sake.

So the question is why a person sometimes does want to annul his desire to receive, which means that a person often sees that while he is asking the Creator to give him vessels of bestowal, his whole body rejects it and what he prays for is only lip service, which means empty words. In any case he sees that there are times when he can pray from the bottom of his heart. The answer is that this is already the answer to his prayer, which means that the Creator gives him the power to pray about that from the bottom of his heart. Therefore a person has to be hopeful that the Creator will bring him close to Him.

In the meantime we can’t know when we receive a desire to pray from Above and when we pray out of our own will, below. All this will be revealed later. This is done on purpose, in order to confuse a person and to let him feel disoriented in the egoistic desire, so that he will begin to ask for forces of bestowal, a desire to bestow. It’s only by the force of bestowal, the force against him, that a person can be critical of himself and see the truth.

But if a person has only one force, then it’s either an angel, when it’s only the force of bestowal, or an ordinary animal that belongs to the levels of the still, vegetative, and animate nature and which have only the force of receiving. But it’s when a person is confused and has doubts, when he can’t find himself in these states of confusion, that he is simply torn apart, that he can find the connection between the two parts of creation: the Creator and the created being who is above his limited mind and feelings. He should rise above his request, above the actual prayer, and the answer for it, like Malchut that rises to Keter, which is called a true “prayer.” The Creator is the answer to the prayer, and then the two connect in the full adhesion of a person and the Creator.

And so a person has to be hopeful that the Creator will bring him close to Him.Since we are constantly nourished from Above, we only have to be aware of the bestowal that comes from Above and goes through us and then back up. We have to be grateful for that, to acknowledge the greatness of the goal, that “there is none else besides Him,” and that He is good and benevolent, and to yearn for connection in every situation. If we constantly try to stabilize this in the true form, and not as it seems to us in our concealment and exile, then it will be a true prayer. [98939] From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/28/13

Changing All The Minuses To Plus

Question: How do I make a covenant with the Creator if I don’t know Him?

Answer: The question is: Why is it only the groom who signs the wedding agreement (Ketubah) and not the bride? Is there a kind of one-sided commitment here? The same happens when a person signs an agreement with the group or with the Creator.

This means that my signature on this contract is enough since the agreement of the other side is certain. So, only the one who hesitates and is unsure has to sign, and thus, he is obligated to sign the commitment.

There is an upper force, and in order to reveal it, there must be a lower force. The force of the upper is bestowal and the force of the lower is receiving. The force of the lower must attain wholeness in its deficiency in order to connect to the upper force that is eternally whole.

Wholeness is attained in the lower force by the connection of 10 people, for example, then of 100, and then of 1000. We always add another zero.

Unless I connect with 10 people, I cannot be called a spiritual “unit,” and, unless I connect with 100 people, I cannot be called a second spiritual “unit,” which means to rise to the second spiritual level. The counter only counts the additional zeros, and this is considered a leap to the next level.

In order to be adapted to the whole upper force, I at least must attain the connection of the first 10. This means that I must connect to 10 people since according to our inner nature, we attain the first, minimal measure of bestowal, #1, by the connection of ten people as one heart and one mind. Now, I have the first force of bestowal.

If I can connect to 100 people in a similar way as one heart and one mind by totally annulling myself, I attain the second force of bestowal, the second spiritual level. Thusly, I must go through 125 levels.

In order to connect with them, I sign a mutual contract. We must be connected so that each one will forget about himself and connect with everyone as one whole. It is impossible to do this alone and we must help one another. We must provide everyone with the greatness of the goal, connection, warmth, and positive examples. In order to do that, we sign a contract, and this is called a covenant.

Each of us goes through states of “+” and “-,” and we need the minus in order to rise to the plus, to “straighten” ourselves. This is possible if, while I am in a state of “minus,” the society intensifies my intention. My minus grows and the plus also grows; they constantly increase. After a small plus, there is a big minus, and after a big plus there is a minus that is twice as large.

This is why I never can overcome the minus that I receive and it always knocks me to the ground. I may be totally thrown off track, and I may continue to work, but without any inspiration and thought. When I fall into such a state, into such a minus, the society has to intensify my intention.

It is a good thing that I have received such a minus since I need a greater minus; I must reach its full measure to fill my measure. The question is how to turn it into a plus. In order to do that, I need an intention! If my deficiency and the society’s intention connect, I can change the minus to the plus each time and, thus, constantly rise. This is called making a covenant.

[98828] From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/13, Writings of Rabash

What I Get Depends On Me

Rabash, Letter #29: But a person doesn’t have a need to bring waste from the outside, as is the case with fertilizing a tree. It must translate impurities from the world to the revelation, meaning, inside his feeling.

Question: What is “waste” for me and what is “fertilizer”?

Answer: It depends on your choice. You are given the ability to decide whether you prefer to eat from waste or good things from bad things? And you always choose something from the two possibilities, but gradually tip the scale in the direction to bestowal. You don’t have the strength to completely annul reception, but anyway, you advance in the right direction.

In your vessel, Kli, there are always three parts. In the upper part you can work for the sake of bestowal, in the middle part restriction reigns, and in the lower part is something that you want for yourself.

The right line can’t exist without the left line, and the left line without the right line. Everything needs to be diversified, until at Gmar Tikkun (the final correction), all the evil will operate as good.

Question: This means that if the friends create an obstacle for me, then they give me “fertilizer”?

Answer: It depends on your meaning of “obstacle.” If the friends show me how much they long to recognize the greatness of the Creator, for a higher level, for adhesion, for Gmar Tikkun, for unity and connection between them, for the revelation of the Light, then for me it can be an obstacle since this approach is hated by the ego, but it can also be a motivation that pushes forwards.

The upper shows the lower the Light, His bestowal, and the lower, by feeling this, must clarify if for him this is food or waste. It is written, “Straight are the ways of the Lord, in them the just walk, but sinners stumble in them.” I can decide that bestowal for me is specifically the Light that pulls me forward. I want to adhere to it and overcome myself in order to do this, even though it is not simple to receive it as food. And then, in this case, I am called “righteous.” But if I don’t want it, then I am called a “sinner”.

In this way, I examine myself according to the principle of “a person will always see himself as half-righteous and half-wicked.” The upper gives me the Light and I can feel it like light or like darkness.

For example, today in the lesson there were many people sitting there without a good mood. And I was very happy about that. Because that is how a disease is discovered. It is very good. Now what is left is to bring the treatment. But they don’t think so. They feel sick.

This means, the question is: It depends on how a person decodes what he receives. There is no evil in the world, but everything depends on how we interpret what happens. For me, the Light, the force of life, can be either food or waste. The tree, naturally, receives fertilizer from the animals, as a good thing, and we have to choose, because from the beginning the “fertilizer” that arrives from the upper doesn’t look good to us. This thing doesn’t look good to me to the extent that it looks like “excrement” and not like a treasure…. [98745] From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/25/13, Writings of Rabash