A Kabbalistic group is the AHP of the Upper One, Malchut that incorporates many other souls in it. I’m the lower one, and my task is to connect my point in the heart to those other souls even though they are foreign to me. If I annul my point in the heart relative to the Upper One, it turns into my GE (Galgalta ve-Eynaim) and, thanks to the Upper One, acquires a form. The Upper One gives it everything that it needs for growth, providing it with the structure, meaning with all the souls, the entire World of Infinity, the whole vessel of the common soul.

If you want to become a spiritual object (Partzuf), adhere to the Upper One, and its AHP will become your newly revealed world. To the measure that you cling to the AHP of the Upper One, your point in the heart expands, thanks to the AHP’s parts.

To adhere means to accept its rule over me, as Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Freedom.” The AHP of the Upper One is my environment. By clinging to it, I receive from it everything I need much like an embryo receives blood, oxygen, and nutrients from its mother. I do so in order for my point in the heart to grow into a spiritual organism.

This organism will resemble whatever I received from the AHP of the Upper One, the group. Yet, it will be its manifestation in my point in the heart, my spiritual gene. In other words, it will be shared by them both, the group and my own point in the heart. This is similar to how a child looks a little like his mother and his father, yet receives his essence from the Creator.

I pass myself into the “hands” of the Upper One; I introduce my desire into it, my demand to become the part in which the right and the left lines unite and realize the act of bestowal. To the extent that I accomplish it, that is, to the extent to which the semen annuls itself before the mother and obliges her to develop it, the mother starts taking care of it in return.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/14/10, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Learn To See The Light In Bestowal
Laitman.com Post: Upbringing In The Spiritual World
Kabbalah Moments: "Transforming Myself"

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work - No Comments →

A question I received: What is “The Fathers’ Merit”?

My Answer: There is a part in the general system of souls that has already completed its correction. They are called the Patriarchs. This part exists in a corrected state, filled with Light. These were very luminous souls, which is why they were able to fully correct their parts in the general system of Adam HaRishon.

But now how do we correct ourselves? We will be able to reach correction by attaching ourselves to them. If I strive to do this, I am called righteous for I want to come to the same state as them to justify the Creator and the creation. And that is when “the fathers’ merit” begins to influence me (otherwise it does not), and I receive from them the Light that returns to the Source.

For this I need a system called the Kabbalistic group, so that within it I could realize the advice given by these Kabbalists (fathers). They tell me what I need to do to place myself into their corrected part within the general system of souls. This is called “to make use of the fathers’ merit.” They have given me Kabbalah (the Torah), told me how to achieve correction, and how to utilize the correction they’ve already made in the general system. I need not torture my body; I only need to draw the Surrounding Light onto myself through their corrected system.

My choice lies only in connecting to the group, through which I can aim myself at the corrected system, called “fathers.” “Fathers” have made corrections within the broken system of Adam HaRishon, and thanks to these corrections anyone can, regardless of time or situation, use the right environment to become like the fathers to connect to them so as to receive from there the Light that returns to the Source, thereby utilizing the power of the light they had attained.

In our Kabbalistic group we want to become like that corrected group of souls, called “fathers.” Therefore, everyone ought to say: “When will my actions be like those of the fathers?” Thus we will have an example how our group can connect to their group.

In this lies our entire choice and inheritance of the fathers’ merit. If our group enters the corrected part of Adam HaRishon, called “fathers,” equalizes its qualities with theirs, and connects to them, in so doing we will make use of their “merit” and return to the corrected state that exists there.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/3/10, Article “Ancestral Merit”

Related Materials:
Laitman.com Post: Rashbi’s System Revives The Common Soul
Laitman.com Post: The Zohar: On Adam HaRishon And Abraham
Attaining The Worlds Beyond: “Transformation of Our Nature”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work - No Comments →

A “friend” is not just any person; he is a companion who stands opposite me. I gradually acquire love for him in order to reach love of the Creator. This formula is rigid and doesn’t change. First I appeal to the Creator, and in order to connect to Him, I have to unite with my friends.

I labor in love of friends because that is the necessary condition for attaining love of the Creator. A friend and the Creator are linked because with respect to my desire to receive pleasure, they are equal. The Creator and my friend are equally distant from me, and I relate to them in the same way.

The Creator is pure bestowal. I hate my friend as much as I hate bestowal, and therefore, I reject them both. If I don’t achieve this attitude and view my friend and the Creator in the same way, then I can’t work properly. It is similar to aligning one’s eye to aim at a target. If my aim is more toward the Creator, or more toward my friend, then it is no longer precise. I must aim precisely at the target, so that he who aspires for the Creator (Isra-El – straight to the Creator) and the Creator (the Light of correction) merge into a single whole.

A Kabbalistic group is a spiritual vessel, a system of souls, while the Creator is the One who fills it. The vessel becomes just like the Light. Then I realize that it is one and the same since there is no Light without a vessel (Kli).

Everything merges into one. The group becomes the model of the Creator for me. In my attitude toward them, I learn how to relate to Him, whether to love or to hate him. Certainly the only way to relate to the Creator is with bestowal. So, I am presented with the group to test how much I can bestow. My ego is what creates the distance, the disparity of form between the Creator and the group. If it weren’t for my ego, then there would be no difference between them.

So why do I feel a difference now? It is only because I receive pleasure from the Creator and nothing from the group. That is the only difference.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/26/10, Article, “What does ‘Love Thyself as Thy Friend’ Give Us?”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Entry Point Into Spirituality
Article: “Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”
Moments From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson: “Love of Friends”

Filed under: Group Work, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →

We are yet to discover our need for all seven billion people living on Earth. Society serves as an amplifying force because an individual’s own strength is very small. Thus, the more people in society under whose influence we put ourselves, the greater the strength we receive. It determines the height of the degree in our resembling the Creator, as well as the measure of adhesion we attain with Him.

We wouldn’t be able to achieve this alone on our own. A Kabbalistic group is a place where a person attaches himself to the Creator, and this determines how high he’ll climb to Him. The group becomes the house where the Creator and the creature dwell together. And when we dwell together there is no longer “I”; rather, there is only “we,” which now becomes the person’s “I.”

It is said, “A prisoner cannot free himself from the prison.” However, the friends can free him by providing him with their inspiration and strength. Therefore, everyone should think about helping a friend connect each state that occurs to its importance toward the purpose, along with understanding its necessity and rejoicing when the “sinners” are revealed in them.

It’s not important what states, what ups and downs, we go through; most important is that we progress toward the goal. Then we understand that we have to go through all states, like a patient undergoing treatment that might be unpleasant, but the recovery is already anticipated. Therefore, it is necessary to elevate each other’s spirits, not by acting silly or frivolous, but by giving each other the spirit of life, that is, spiritual life, which brings one happiness.

The mood is so important because it gives us the force of life. However, material life, wealth, or power won’t bring us an uplifted mood. If a person lost the power of faith, the force of life,  if he no longer feels the support of the society, the only means of advancement, then he can be helped only by another person. Only the other person can imbue us with the feeling of how important bestowal, confidence, and a fulfilled life are. In this, everyone has to help a friend. Everyone has to set an example of his burning passion toward reaching the goal at any minute.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/10, Article, “They Helped Everyone His Friend”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: A Simple Formula For Spiritual Life
Laitman.com Post: Leave Your Donkeys To Graze Below
Kabbalah Moments: "Helping The Friends"

Filed under: Group Work, My Similarity to the Creator, Zohar - No Comments →

Article, “Concerning Love of Friends:”

1. Why do I need love of friends?

Love of friends is the connection among souls.

“I” is my soul, a “friend” is a different soul, but love is the kind of connection between us whereby he becomes more important to me than I am to myself, and, accordingly, I’m more important to him than he is to himself. I have to feel his desires as closer than my own. This is called loving the other as you love yourself.

However, loving the other does not mean feeling the material desires of our world and serving them; rather, it means uniting our desires to attain the Creator. I am building a totally new spiritual construction, the common soul of Adam HaRishon, which has never existed before and which is above all corporeality.

2. Why did I choose these particular friends, and why did they choose me?

Did I really pick these friends? The force from Above has led me to this group. So where does my free will begin? We build our free choice every day, constantly checking why we need to unite with friends:

a.) Do I see in them, and they in me, the point in the heart, that is, the desire to unite and achieve adhesion with the Creator?

b.) What connection should be established in order to discover Him among us according to the law of the equivalence of form?

3. Should each friend openly express his love or it is enough that it is concealed in his heart?

Every one must openly express his love for the group. By doing so, he will increase the love in his friends’ hearts and will be impressed by them. If previously he had only his individual power of love for friends, now he will receive the powers from all the friends in the group.

One must always remember the purpose of the group which is to merge with the Creator.

A Kabbalistic group is founded on love of friends because it is the springboard for attaining the love of the Creator. That is why we must show each other examples of love of another.

4. Is it necessary to know what each friend lacks in order to fill him, or is it enough to love friends in general?

It is enough to love friends in general so as to assure that a friend does not lack motivation, support on the path, inspiration, and the feeling of how important the Creator and the group are, and to provide him with all this to the best of one’s ability.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/10, Article “Concerning Love of Friends”

[Read more →]

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →

A Kabbalistic group unites around one goal: reaching love for one’s neighbor and through it, love for the Creator. This means loving the property of love and bestowal. Every person, who agrees with this goal, adds his small force to the group, the point in the heart that was given to him from Above.

None of us is able to enter the spiritual using only his own strength; we can only do it through combining our strength, in other words, joining with a group and canceling ourselves, our egoism. Joining a group and canceling our egoism with the purpose of receiving the force of bestowal from it is the first step towards spirituality. Work in a group is the work on transitioning from corporeality into spirituality through the opening created by the group.

The group is the means. It is not the group that fixes you like a screwdriver or a wrench, but you yourself must use the group for work. The group is the spiritual model before you. It is given to you in a corporeal form, but we turn it into a spiritual form by relating to it as to a collection of souls and not a group of bodies.

We build a spiritual space inside our group. We build a spiritual vessel, the Kli, by canceling ourselves and connecting our points in the heart to the collection of all the other points. I only add my single small force to the group, but I receive "620" times more from it. Spirituality becomes revealed to me as a more inner degree in the exact place where I find this connection and our common force.

We cancel our material nature, our animate egoism. All our "donkeys" (donkey, Hamor, which comes from the word Homer - matter) stay beneath, but we rise above them and unite. So we acquire a single, big force, which is "620" times greater than the previous one, and this force will definitely let every person defeat the animal within. In this way we create a new spiritual vessel, which did not exist before the breaking of the souls. Inside this vessel, among us, we reveal the common property of bestowal within which we reveal the Creator.

I add my single force and receive 620 times more by rising to the first spiritual degree. And now I add this big force to the group and receive 620 times more as I rise to the new degree. It turns out that my initial point of the soul swells 620 times its initial size, and this way then it grows bigger and bigger as it ascends step by step. The group becomes Malchut, Shechina.

This is why the group needs to be united with a single opinion: a desire to reach bestowal, adhesion with the Creator. This creates the "head" (Rosh) of the spiritual Partzuf. Our common spiritual vessel is the spiritual world, but every person experiences it in their own way, according to their essential, primary point of the soul; the soul does not disappear, instead it grows 620х620х620… times. This is how we build the spiritual world within, where the Creator becomes revealed. There is no other place.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/10, Article “The Purpose of Society”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Planting Yourself In The Right Environment For Spiritual Growth
Laitman.com Post: We Have Assembled Here To Become Human
Kabbalah Moments: "Group And Light"

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work - No Comments →

Man is born loving only himself. This is our nature, and we can’t do anything about it. We always live inside it and cannot step out of it. All our actions are only for our own sake; otherwise, it is impossible to move forward. Therefore, I need a foreign force which would act against my nature and change it.

All my thinking and energy keep working for the purpose of filling and comforting myself. But there is one point in me that is pushing me to step outside of my nature, rise from the animate level, and reach the Creator, that is, to attain the human level. Only this point in me belongs to the human level, the level of the Creator since “man” is similar to the Creator.

I belong to the material world entirely, but this one point in me belongs to the spiritual one. If it doesn’t awaken, a human being lives solely in this world and doesn’t suspect anything more; he is satisfied with this materialistic life. If, however, this point is awakened in his heart, he feels uncomfortable in this world and strives to rise from it. He is influenced by two forces: One pushes him from behind out of the material world, and the other pulls him from the front, from the spiritual world.

Without renouncing oneself (one’s egoism) and rising above one’s nature, it is impossible to reach adhesion with the Creator. I have to decide which nature I wish to be related to: to the nature of the Creator or that of the creature, that is, to choose bestowal or reception.

Since giving is opposite to our nature, there is only one means to move from the material to the spiritual: a Kabbalistic group. The group has immense power because we work together and everyone annuls the egoistical desire that prevents him from fulfilling the purpose for which man is born. The purpose is to become similar to the Creator. The Creator is the force of bestowal, love, and annulment of self. This is why I need the group as an external foreign force that works as a lever which allows me to turn my nature around.

In order for this force to be great and invigorating, the group must be united and strong within itself and burn with the desire to fulfill the spiritual purpose. Then, everyone in it can use this power and step out of the enslavement of egoistic love.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/10, Article “The Purpose of the Association –2”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Life Is Merging With The Creator
Laitman.com Post: Breaking The Vicious Cycle Of Life And Death
Laitman.com Post: A Blessed Seed Planted In The Garden

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, My Similarity to the Creator - No Comments →

The Surrounding Light influences a person only to the extent of his desire for spirituality. He receives this desire from a Kabbalistic group. The group is his environment which exists on the same level with him; from it he absorbs everything, like a seed planted in the ground.

The seed itself is dead. It comes alive only when the seed is introduced into suitable soil. The enlivening happens only as a result of the environment. Without a proper environment the seed is merely a lifeless informational gene. In the appropriate environment where it begins to be influenced by the sun and other forces of nature, the seed comes to life.

The seed must interact with the environment in order for the general Upper Force to operate on it. The same holds true for a person. A person is influenced by his or her environment, just like a seed will grow and thrive only when planted in the appropriate soil with favorable surrounding conditions.  If a person does not place himself in the right environment, he shouldn’t expect any spiritual advancement.

This is a fact that ought to be clear to everybody. Only to the degree that a person absorbs from his environment does he receive the "sun" and "oxygen," (the requisite forces) which begin to cultivate him into a "tree." Then this force will be felt inside him even by those who are unable to clearly see it with their physical eyes. Since we are all connected within a single general system, other people will feel that within us lives a true and clearly felt spiritual charge: the Light within the vessel.

From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/10, Article “Make Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend”

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: The Self-Contained System Of Connections
Laitman.com Post: Oxygen Button
Kabbalah Moments: What Influences Me (2:01)

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work - No Comments →

A question I received: How can we come to feel shame and make a restriction on our ego?

My Answer: Shame is a very exalted sensation, which does not come at the beginning of our path. This shame is with respect to the Creator, the Giver. It is precisely because He is the Giver and I am the receiver.

In our world we always restrict our reception in order to avoid feeling shame. We must justify receiving; we are compelled to preserve the feeling of self-dignity as our “I” is even more important than life itself. In fact, we are prepared to die if doing so would stave off humiliation. This is the basis of our nature. People are willing to face death in order to bolster their “I,” their self-esteem.

Shame is when I feel my “I” annul and disappear. If I lose my desire and fulfillment, I don’t feel that I cease to exist. A person dies and doesn’t feel that he completely disappears from reality. He only feels that he loses some part of himself as if shedding something from his past.

However, when the sensation of shame comes to me, it cancels my spiritual existence. It is a kind of inner feeling as though nothing of me remains. It is above our life and death, that is how deep it is. And it is impossible to withstand. Man is willing to commit suicide in order to save the point of his “I.” The body is merely an animal, and we’re not particularly afraid of losing it. We see how people risk their lives.

The Creator continuously plays a game with us by consistently and methodically offending the point of our “I,” and we are left without a choice but to take measures so as to preserve our individuality. The feeling that I must rise above this life, above death, helps me to acquire a second nature. I am prepared to accept it. I am told to bestow, and I am willing to do it. Do I need to lose myself as of today? Sure, I am ready! As long as the point of my “I” is preserved.

This sensation can only be granted by the Light that Reforms. The Light affects us and awakens in us this point that lies at our very core, the initial point called “Esh Mi Ayin” (created from nothing – existence from absence). This is not the material of the desire to enjoy, but something even deeper.

The only way to attain it is through the study of Kabbalah in a Kabbalistic group. In the group we endeavor to build a model of spiritual unity similar to what exists in the World of Infinity. By studying in the conditions of this unity, we draw the Light that elevates us to that very state. There are no other means besides the group and the study in the group.

Shame is a terrible sensation, but it is precisely shame which brings us salvation.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Morning Lesson 5/14/10, Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: Kabbalah Is A Patent For Infinite Pleasure
Laitman.com Post: Revealing The Book Of Zohar: We Are Black Dots In An Ocean Of Light
Kabbalah Moments: Only The Light Reforms (1:56)

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson - No Comments →

As Baal HaSulam states, the whole world is one family. Hence the on-line system that we want to create must work on each person like a Kabbalistic group that helps him build new connections and new attitudes about himself, his friends, and the world at large.

We would like to lay the foundation of this structure on the Internet so that we all connect in one system regardless of user language, location, or any other factors whatsoever. It should be an independent self-driven structure that helps all of us advance spiritually.

In other words, we need to create an artificial system of spiritual connections among us, which is identical to the union that exists between our souls. Kabbalists advise us to join a group and begin to build relationships with it as if you were already in spirituality.

From A Talk about a New Internet 4/4/10

Related Material:
Laitman.com Post: A Different Formula For Happiness
Laitman.com Post: The Machsom Is The Critical Landmark Of Life
Laitman.com Post: Language Is A Program Of Human Connection

Filed under: Internet, Kabbalah Dissemination - No Comments →