We experience the world within our desire to receive pleasure. Everything we are able to perceive through our five sensory organs, such as sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, results in the picture we observe from within. This is the reality we perceive.

Is there a way out of this limited perception into a broader one, which is not restricted by the physical body and its five sensory organs? After all, our vision of the world and our self is dictated by our animate body. It all depends on perception. Perhaps, there are countless forms beyond the body, but our body filters them allowing us to feel only what it is able to process. It means that we will never be able to experience the ultimate reality. If this is the case, then maybe we will see it is the true reality after the body dies? Yet, how is this possible if our five sensory organs die with it?

Kabbalists tell us that we are unable to perceive the entire reality because it is experienced “within myself” and thereby limited to only partial perception called “this world.” However, we can shift into the “outer” perception, the one outside the body. There is a force that changes our range of perception, where it is possible to experience reality outside of myself. In other words, instead of focusing on myself, I focus on the others and put them above myself.

When we are reading about the outer reality, it influences us in such way that we gradually begin perceiving it. It is called, “labored and found.” We must exert effort in order to obtain this new perception. After a few months of such laboring we start noticing changes occurring within us, and how different our perception of others becomes.

The most effective way to advance in this process is through a group reading The Zohar, regardless of how well we understand it. What counts is our desire to be affected by it, which will gradually help us start experiencing the outer reality.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/23/10, The Zohar

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We are part of a society that is moving toward the purpose of creation, and under its influence, our values are changing. We check everything that is happening relative to our advancing toward eternity and perfection. We don’t want to be bound to transience and death. Our desire to receive pleasure wants to rise higher. It is not enough for it to merely improve current conditions; our desire strives for qualitative change.

Initially, I want change in the world around me, not within me. I need time, study, and collective efforts in order to switch my desire from that of external change, to an internal one. At first my efforts seem to bring no results, but then something suddenly clicks and my understanding and perception of the world change. Such changes may take months to occur.

Each new state consists of 10 Sefirot, which are our accumulated inner transformations that are hidden from our own awareness. Only after they are completed can we make a leap to the next spiritual degree that we perceive. Therefore, we simply need to exert effort to accelerate time. Once we build a new state consisting of the 10 Sefirot, we will experience it as a new spiritual degree.

Before this change occurs, a person feels confused, as if in a fog. This happens at every spiritual degree, even the highest. It is a sign that one is standing at the threshold of the next degree. In fact, in order to enter the next state, a person must lose the previous degree in order to receive the new one. These transitions are much more effective than going through another cycle of life and death.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/23/10, The Zohar

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In order to reach love, we first need to achieve fear of the Creator. The first stage that we need to undergo in this process occurs on the level of a simple action, as it is written: “We shall do, and we shall hear!” (“Naase ve Nishma”).

In our world, we worry about our close ones since our well-being depends on them. However, we do not experience this natural concern in regard to the society and the Creator. Thus, we need to exert much effort in order to create the beginning of such fear in us.

We put in a great deal of effort in the group in order to unite. We read and hear a lot about the broken system of connection among us, which was purposely destroyed by the Creator so that we would aspire to recreate it. We try to behave like we love each other, like we need each other. These attempts are, in fact, practical actions despite the fact that it is a game, superficial behavior. But in the beginning we need to “do” and then we will “hear”! To “hear” is the second part that depends on the Upper Light, the Creator.

If we exert a sufficient amount of effort, the Light reveals this opportunity to us: It opens the entrance in our hearts called “the entrance for those who knock at the Creator’s door” (Petach Le Dofkim Bi Tshuva). And then we begin to sense the desire for bestowal, the opening in the heart through which we feel concern for others, like mother Bina does about her children. We become this mother Bina in relation to the whole system of souls with which we need to unite in order to give to them. I adjoin the Creator to myself in order to give to Him also. I bestow and thus become seemingly above Him.

We only lack this trepidation. Once we obtain it, we begin to understand how this attitude evolves into love.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/22/10, Article, “You Stand Today, All of You”

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The Zohar, Chapter “Lech Lecha (Go Forth),” Item 108: The act of Egypt is extension of the light of Hochma from above downwards, like the sin of the tree of knowledge….

However, there is a degree that is close to the act of Egypt and is not the real act of Egypt. He [a person] extends illumination of Hochma from above downwards once, to strengthen and to increase the [lights of] Hassadim that are covered from Hochma…. Hence, this degree is considered close to Egypt, but not the actual land of Egypt.

If a person holds back and does not use his desires, how does he grow in his anti-egoistic screen? He needs to draw some pleasures to himself, but even receiving them, he should feel a lack of pleasure. This is the first exercise. Then, as he allows himself to gradually feel the pleasures, he should still remain in the intention above them.

For example, one could be enjoying something tasty, but using the pleasure to see how much he can rule over it and rousing the pleasure in himself only for the purpose of nevertheless feeling that he is above it. Another exercise: a person consciously brings himself closer to a source of fear or shame in order to feel whether he has power over himself and can hold himself above this feeling.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/22/10, The Zohar

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. I promise to answer them. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

All the Teachings in the World Are Included in the Wisdom of Kabbalah

All the teachings in the world are included in the wisdom of Kabbalah. [Kabbalah is based on the attainment of one initial force which is the source of all the forces and qualities that flow out of it. Therefore, Kabbalah is the source of the sciences that examines these secondary forces and qualities.]
- Baal HaSulam, The Freedom

The greatest wonder about this wisdom [Kabbalah] is the integration in it: All the [separate] elements of the vast reality are incorporated in it, until they come into a single thing—the Almighty, and all of them together. [A wonderful characteristic of attainment consists of the gradual unification of all of the opposite and different objects, forces, and qualities which, to the extent of one’s own correction and attainment, rouse in the one who attains a sense of perfection and eternity.]
- Baal HaSulam, The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence

There is no other wisdom in the world [except Kabbalah] where matters are so fused and intertwined by way of cause and effect, primary and consequential, as is the wisdom of Kabbalah, connected head to toe just like a long chain [as a single and whole creation].
- Baal HaSulam, The Essence of The Wisdom of Kabbalah

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Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “15th of Av”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Lech-Lecha (Go Forth),” Item 120
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15, Item 1, Lesson 1
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 1, Lesson 1
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Question: How can I awaken fear of the Creator inside me if I only see our material world?

Answer: Once I’ve been in the group for a long time, the time comes when I suddenly "hear" that I have to unite with my friends in order to attain the spiritual world. Yet, I don’t understand why and for what because I still don’t feel the connection between the following components:

1. The Upper Goal, which I don’t feel or realize, but which I have to attain;
2. The Upper Force, which I have to attain and feel;
3. My attitude to the friends;
4. The state of unity with friends which we have to attain.

There is a chain of inner revelations of feeling that have to take place within me. After all, our entire life is sensations. We are made of a matter called "the will to enjoy." This is a desire that feels pleasure or suffering and nothing more than that.

Therefore, my entire attitude to anything amounts to my sensation. It is either present or absent. If I don’t have this inner chain of feeling, the connection of how I will attain the goal of creation from this moment on (through love for the Creator, worry about Him, fear of Him, care for the group, and unity with friends as one man with one heart), if I still lack the inner responses to this, the impressions and reactions, then I still have to do more work on myself.

What should I do? The condition for revealing the Creator is just like at Mount Sinai: having the desire to unite as one man with one heart. Then He will become revealed to you in your unified desire. Moreover, you only have to desire to unite, and the Creator will carry out the unification. We have to try to acquire a desire for unity.

But how can I try to do this if I don’t want it? You can develop a desire through action. This is the meaning of the verse, "We will do and we will hear!"

This is exactly why our false world was created, where we exist in bodies. You can perform false physical actions of bestowal to your friends and speak about unity with them without any desire for it.

You don’t have a desire for it? That doesn’t matter! You don’t live just in the desire. You also exist in an external shell called the physical body. So make physical actions of bestowal to your friend, acting as if you love him instead of yourself.

That is why it is written, "Buy yourself a friend." Bestow to him in all sorts of ways and you will feel how your attitude to him changes. Why? Because you invested your energy and efforts in him. You did not want it, but by acting this way you gained a special attitude to him.

This is called "We will do." Actions that you make without a desire bring you to "we will hear," to the quality of bestowal.  (“Hearing” is the quality of Bina). Then you already begin to hear the things the Torah speaks about. It is the instruction manual on the path to the Light. (Torah comes from the words Ohr – Light, and Horaa – instructions.)

Therefore, let’s try to unite all together even if we don’t have a desire for this. Let’s ascend above our feelings and then we will experience everything in a new way.

From the 1st lesson of the Mega Congress 2010

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Unity Around the World “Lecture at the Unity Evening”
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Question: Will the world change if we pass the Machsom at this Congress? Will it happen immediately or gradually?

Answer: Right now we are able to unite our desires and awaken the Upper Light to such an extent that we will feel the Light. We will then feel the spiritual reality, the connection between us through mutual bestowal. I am not talking about love, total interconnection or "return due to love" because this is the second phase of correction. For now we are connecting on the first phase of correction just by ascending above our ego by the force of the Light.

This Light is like a magnet that raises us above our egoism, above the mountain of hatred, Mount Sinai. We can ascend above egoism and enter the spiritual world temporarily, for a certain amount of time, and then once again descend into the ego and return into the material world. Alternatively, we can ascend or enter it permanently, in which case from that state on we will begin the phases of development in the "desert," where we ascend up the spiritual ladder. We will then rise along 125 levels until the World of Infinity, the total correction of egoism into bestowal and love.

Let us hope that we will attain at least a temporary revelation of the Creator. However, even if this doesn’t happen, it means that we still lack the true desire for it, that our desire is not great or precise enough yet in order to get rid of egoism. In that case, it will happen next time when we accumulate sufficient force and the exact desire to ascend above ourselves. The most important thing is to be concerned about the connection between us and to reveal the Creator inside this connection. This is the purpose of the existence of the worlds and of man in this world.

Our quantitative and qualitative force is already sufficient for us to attain it at this Congress.

From the 1st lesson of the Mega Congress 2010

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