Only after we have applied all the efforts to unite with each other can we hasten our development and return to the authentic and corrected sensation of reality in order to wake up from this dream, this concealment, in which we exist. We can go by the path of suffering, but it is not development! We do not arrive at an autonomous desire to return to the Light, to the state of adhesion with Him in which we once existed in the world of Infinity.

We have to come back to the world of Infinity and merge with the Creator into one whole, but we must do so by our own desire and by ourselves. It shouldn’t be as it was earlier when, not having the intention, we were under the rule of the Light which sustained our connection with its force, in spite of the complete opposition of our desires. The Light simply filled us without our agreement: This is how we existed in similarity to it, being supported by its force.

But now we have to come to it by our own authority. First, there has be the desire and then its contact with the Light. In the initial State 1, the Light precedes the Kli (vessel). In the final State 3, when we return to that very same unified soul, the desire precedes the Light.

And all the sufferings and afflictions that push us forward do not result in real advancement; we do not correct anything thereby. After all, we haven’t done anything ourselves. And only if we try to act ourselves, meaning to work on our unification which we reach against our egoistic desire, against our resistance, only then our efforts are regarded as our contribution to correction.

Hence, the Light will never concede and allow us to progress without our free participation and the yearning to return to the state of unity. We ourselves have to decide that we are returning to bestowal—to the degree that we unite against the force of the breaking, which dwells among us.

A person has to understand that within his efforts to unite with the others he will find everything: the force of separation, breaking, and hatred, as well as the force to overcome this division: the force of love and connection. And only such actions go toward his account and draw him closer to the final correction. They are the only indication of his progress.

In any situation, we need to try to see ourselves as one man with one heart who represents our collective soul.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/24/11 Preparation for the WE! Convention

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Our world is built of the desire to receive and controlled by pleasure, which this desire keeps running after. We are constantly tormented either by the absence of pleasure or its beckoning light from the future, which forces us to develop.

When a person more or less realizes what he or she wants, it is regarded as the “developmental gene” (Reshimo), which is the part of desire that somehow sees the future delight and yearns precisely for it. In our world, such development occurs naturally. New desires keep unfolding in us, while against them, there is the Surrounding Light that attracts desires to itself, to pleasure.

Essentially, man is desire that yearns to feel good. And if we suddenly stop feeling pleasure at all, we immediately feel a halt and a lack of energy to move on since that desirable pleasure was precisely the source of energy for us.

Thus, we kept developing, moving forth along the chain of Reshimot that were actualizing in us automatically, without us being aware of it. But this chain is finite, and it has come to an end! And now, it gives way to a very unique, spiritual gene, in which the Reshimo (desire) and the Surrounding Light that illuminates it don’t match and are even opposite to each other.

And it turns out that I don’t see how I can receive this Light that tantalizes me. Something is calling out to me, but I do not know how to reach it because first, I have to become similar to it, to receive an anti-egoistic screen for this Light.

At this point, a person stops in his tracks and can’t move. All he can do is ask: “What do I need this life for, and what do I do next?” as if getting cornered in a dead end. This period can last a long time because any spiritual development requires many internal efforts from us until a person gets used to and becomes receptive to it.

And finally, he still makes a certain change in his life: He arrives at the place where he hears that it is possible to actualize this new desire, in order to reach fulfillment. He doesn’t yet understand how to accomplish it all, but already starts to move ahead along the degrees of understanding: 0-1-2-3-4 that must be walked to the very end, to the last 4th degree, so he may comprehend something from this segment of his development.

And then, there starts another new cycle: 0-1-2-3-4, and so on. And all of this may take many months. But now, while moving along these preliminary stages: 0-1-2-3-4, a person feels that a secret is hidden in this place, which lures him and doesn’t let him leave.

Thus, one gradually gets ready to hear such terms as the “group” and “correction” that must be performed with its help, as well as about the correction of the entire world. It is a rather lengthy process. But the point is that a person finally gets to know that he lacks a new force: equivalence between the nature of his desire and its fulfillment.

Desire must match its fulfillment! It is the desire to receive pleasure, but it must enjoy bestowal, and then it will be fulfilled. After all, fulfillment that is standing before it is the fulfillment in bestowal. And in order to learn to enjoy bestowal, a person is led to the group where he gradually starts to understand where he’s been brought to and what is going on there.

He suddenly understands what all the articles were talking about, which he used to read and discuss without any idea what he was saying, what kind of group he was in, and without any understanding why he was here and how he ended up in it. But now, he can gradually comprehend that the group is, indeed, the place of actualizing his spiritual fulfillment; he realizes that only with its help will he be able to change the type of his fulfillment from reception to bestowal.

If he does so, he will be able to enjoy the Light that will come and fulfill him as much as he expands his desire to enjoy bestowal.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/2011 Preparation for the WE! Convention

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Writings of Rabash, Dargot HaSulam, “The Matter of the Clothing of the Soul”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “Yitro (Jethro),” “You Shall Not Have,” Item 444, Lesson 9
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Explanation of the Article, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 8, Lesson 3
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The Principles of Global Education, Lesson 8
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My Good Environment – Dr. Laitman’s Advice and Principles for the Week

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On the path we reveal various flaws, and that is how it should be. However, it is a completely different matter when I am able to accept them with understanding by virtue of my preparation and the support I receive from the environment. Then I will see the flaws as a kind of exercise. And an exercise is no longer a bad thing.

When encountering a problem, I don’t panic, feeling weak and confused. On the contrary, I know that I have been given this problem in order to overcome it and receive a reward. It does not trip me so I fall down and does not cut me off from the path to goodness.

The entire matter lies in the preparation, which enables me to see everything as a chance for advancement, rather than an avalanche of troubles that we want to run away from or even to end our own lives.

The aim at the goal decides everything. If I am in a caring environment, then it “brainwashes me” and explains that all the defects are being revealed as exercises for a person who wishes to grow. Then I use them in order to advance. Moreover, I am happy about the flaws that become revealed.

And vice versa, without the appropriate upbringing, without the support and help of the environment, I cannot correct and turn every flaw into a trampoline for leaping forward. Instead of this, I am always immersed in evil.

In this regard humanity faces free choice: How to accept everything that becomes revealed on the path? If I recognize the problems in advance, if I prepare an environment for myself and desire to advance forward, then the flaws are revealed gently. I already understand them, am ready for them, and accept them as signs of advancement.

Question: What defects are you talking about? About the realization of evil inside of oneself, or about tsunamis and other natural disasters?

Answer: If you prepare, then you no longer need a tsunami. Then the flaws will not be troubles for you, but challenges. They won’t be unresolved problems, but tasks. Similarly, a diligent child does not need strict measures. Instead we let him gather a Lego or puzzle, and so on. He does not receive a difficult life from us, but exercises which he likes. Even if they make him sweat a bit, they also give him pleasure.
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Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”: The sweeter the fruit is at its end, the more bitter and unsightly it is in the earlier phases of its development.

No one is as wise as an experienced person. In the initial phase, he already sees the final perfection. But how can we be wise if we don’t see the end?

We have to learn on the examples that Kabbalists give us and find evidence for them with every step we make. We have to reduce all of the states we go through to one as we attain them on our small spiritual experience.

Everything happens gradually, by way of ascents and descents: a little bit of bitterness, and a little bit of sweetness. We have to overcome problems time after time in order to grow more and more. Our entire growth lies in overcoming the bitter states of the fruit until we begin to discern what is sweetness.

To develop does not mean to strengthen our initial state because then it will become increasingly more bitter. Rather, we must turn bitter to sweet, create the opposite, acquiring the quality of bestowal above the quality of reception so it would begin to grow. Then we sweeten the initial state, the phases of the maturation of the fruit, the spiritual vessel.

At every state we have to focus not on the quantitative growth, but on qualitative improvement. We turn everything that’s bitter into sweet by virtue of understanding that the bitterness was given to us in order to overcome it. We work above it and then greater sweetness emerges in us out of that growing bitterness, until the fruit (vessel) ripens.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/24/11 on Global Education

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Question: What does it mean to feel that you are already at the convention right now, while reading The Book of Zohar, so the convention would happen in the best possible way?

Answer: Prepare yourself. If you are about to attend a wonderful, pleasant, and joyful event, then you prepare for it in advance. You anticipate it and enjoy this beckoning illumination of the future. And you receive great inspiration from that.

Therefore, as we get closer to the worldwide convention that will be held in New Jersey, we have to prepare ourselves already now. Everything depends on preparing the desire, “What do I plan on correcting? What do I want? What will I get out of it? How do I want to appear there?” I have to imagine all of this in detail, as if I am already there. Therefore, we have to make all the songs available on the website, as well as everything that will happen at the cultural programs and the other events so people can become familiar with it, understand it, and already be able to imagine how it will happen.

A child grows by imagining the future, and then it comes true. If a person does not experience this reverent desire at all times, if he does not increase his desires, and even his worries and fears, then he does not gain anything. He must already now wait impatiently, wondering, “How will this happen? When? In what way? How will I be inspired? How will I participate?”

This is necessary in order to grow up. If children did not receive the aspiration toward the future from nature, then they would not be able to grow. But for us, this aspiration is given as freedom of choice. Do you want to grow up? Then find a way to receive the greatness of the goal from the environment, and then you will grow. There is no other method! If we don’t learn on the example of small children, if we don’t implement these actions in practice, then it would be a shame to let our lives go by wasted.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/24/11, The Zohar

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Writings of Rabash, “Love of Friends”: A man found him while he was wandering in the field and asked him, “What are you looking for?” To which he replied, “I am looking for my brothers. Tell me, where are they?” … This is talking about a person who has veered off the path of the spiritual development, who does not know the true way there, who has already reached despair and thinks that he will never attain his goal. That is why he answers, “I want to be in the group where there is love of friends because then I will be able to ascend up the path leading to the Creator.”

That is how we wander around, not knowing how to reach the right state. We don’t understand how to establish the connection with spirituality and where to find it. However, in fact we are already in the spiritual world now, which is why we are wandering around this field. We already have the opportunity to establish a relationship with the group and to connect with the friends, but we are unable to do this. Thus, we walk by, like we are blind. We are already in the right place, but we cannot find this connection, as if we are wandering around in the dark.

This darkness is not outside, but inside of us, as a result of our blindness and lack of understanding. What’s missing here is some kind of epiphany in feeling and reason so I would understand in what form I have to connect with the friends. Then I will find how to make the breakthrough to the spiritual development, to the first contact with spirituality which is called “three days of absorption of the spiritual seed.”

For that I have to understand how to bind myself to the environment the right way, and that is the most difficult thing to do. In our world we know of cases when a woman is unable to get pregnant. And it is much more difficult yet to get into the spiritual world.

The Torah talks about the great problems of infertility that each of the fore-mothers had and how difficult it was for them to get pregnant. This is a symbol of how difficult it is to bind oneself to the environment.

How, then, is it possible to help a person who feels that he is lost and does not see any chance of advancing spiritually? He has put years into it and seems to know and understand everything, other than the direction. At first he thought that the knowledge he receives will help him, or some kind of actions, or maybe time will do the job.

But later he reveals that nothing helps him and then he becomes confused. That is when an angel comes to him and finally asks him, “What are you asking for? What are you looking for here?” Then the person checks himself and starts to understand that he lacks precisely the connection with the environment, “I am looking for my brothers!”

This is already a great attainment where you understand that you will be able to realize your spiritual development only on this path, inside of the connection with others. The group turns into a spiritual place. Instead of the material, physical group that he sees now, he will feel the inner connection between everyone and will turn this connection into mutual bestowal. He will reveal the net connecting them, which is called the system of the upper worlds, and all of the worlds will enter it.

This group will become the place where he will gradually reveal all of the spiritual levels, until he will come so close to the other 125 levels that he will unite with them into one whole. This will be called the end of his correction (Gmar Tikkun).

If a person begins to feel that he will be able to realize his spiritual development precisely in this way, through the relationships with the environment, this means that he is wandering around the Creator’s field and looking, while knowing what to look for and what to ask for. He still has to go through a difficult road up ahead, but this point where he decides that the spiritual world can only be reached through unity with the environment is extremely important. That’s because it is opposite to all of his previous, material, egoistic development.

This point marks the beginning of his development and his connection with others “from himself outwards, for the sake of bestowal.” Therefore, this point is the beginning for the new path.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/11, Preparation to the WE! Convention

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