Question: What should we do with the people who study the material independently and come with established, self-imposed “axioms” with which they confuse other students?

Answer: The group should isolate itself in its Kabbalistic center like an embryo in the mother’s womb. A developing soul needs to be protected. It must be surrounded with love and care like an embryo or a baby, by building a nurturing atmosphere around it, similar to “Noah’s ark.”

While students have not yet reached spiritual revelation and don’t quite understand what they are doing and where they are going, they get tossed from side to side, from state to state because each time new systems are formed within us. And while we are constructing ourselves, we continue going through unstable states; hence, we cannot be under the influence of several factors, but only one.

Baal HaSulam writes in “A Speech in Celebration of the Conclusion of The Zohar” that if a student doesn’t cleave to the teacher, like an embryo clings to the mother, and doesn’t adhere to the upper one, then he doesn’t advance. This law rules in the spiritual world as well as the material one while we are in the preparation stage and work with our egoistic desires.

If a student doesn’t conform, nothing will help. He may be very smart and have outstanding abilities, but he won’t reach spiritual attainment. Hence, the sages said: “A thousand [disciples] enter the class, but only one comes out to the Light.” And the only reason for this is negligence, reluctance to accurately follow the spirit of the teacher, the person that passes spirituality to you.

I myself don’t need this in the least; you know how I loathe any kind of worship. But a student has to develop such an attitude. At the very beginning of the path, one has to make up his mind, according to the principle: “A person learns where his heart desires.” So how can you allow someone to enter your center, your home, and confuse you? I would never allow it.

We still cannot determine who is right and wrong, everything is relative. And if you wish to advance spiritually, don’t trust anyone; you must choose the source you want to drink from on your own. Everyone must unilaterally select a teacher who will answer his questions and meet his expectations, and who is qualified to guide him or her on the path of spiritual growth.
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From Lesson 2, Convention at the Arava Desert 12/31/10

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