Morning Lesson December 08, 2021, Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences from audio
Part 1:
Baal HaSulam - Shamati 98. Spirituality Is Called That Which Will Never Be Lost
1.Rav’s Introduction: Kabbalists want to pass on to us in all kinds of ways and possibilities the knowledge and feeling of bringing closer to us what spirituality is. Spirituality is actually the feeling of the Creator, but at least how to come close to that, how to approach it, to prepare our senses and not be confused, specifically those that can assist us in revealing spirituality, develop those senses and the rest senses, and understand that we don't earn, gain anything by having them. On the contrary, they will just confuse us. if we continue working with them. Also, to discover the process by which we need in the development of the correct senses that we can go through it. Therefore, they write to us, recommend, and are capable as much as they are capable to explain to us what connection there is, what is the oppositeness, what is the resistance, and what is relative to spirituality.
Reader (02:09): Part 1: Baal HaSulam. Shamati, 98. Spirituality Is Called That Which Will Never Be Lost
2. R. (05:55) Rav reads & comments: There is nevertheless certain innovations in the explanations of spiritual attainment. Spiritual reality is called that which will never be lost, because spirituality is called degrees of attainment of the Creator on the side of the created being, where the created being is certainly in opposite qualities to the Creator, meaning he is completely in reception and the Creator is fully in bestowal. When the creature begins to arrange himself, and is willing to feel the Creator, meaning the quality of bestowal, according to the way he depicts it to himself and what he develops inside of him, then according to that he discovers what ‘Bo-re,’ ‘’come and see’’, the Creator is. The feeling of the Creator, the attainment of the Creator is called spirituality.
‘’Spirituality is called that which will never be lost. Hence, the will to receive, in the form it is in, meaning in order to receive, is called “corporeality,” since it will be canceled from this form and will acquire the form of in order to bestow.’’
‘’A real place [What is a place in spirituality?] in spirituality is called “the place of reality,” since anyone who comes there, to that place [to some state, special state],’’ [Meaning to that place] sees the same shape as the other.’’ This is already considered that a person is in a place, if the other and he can grasp the same form as the second one, just like the other outside of him. So this perception is called that they are in one place, it's called a place. ‘’Conversely, something imaginary is not regarded as a real place since it is imaginary, [Meaning, it's depicted - imagined only to one of them and not to the others] and then everyone imagines it differently [Where he is].’’
‘’When we say, “seventy faces to the Torah,” it means that they are seventy degrees. In each degree, the Torah is interpreted according to the degree one is in.’’ [The Torah itself is the light of Ein Sof [Infinity]. When a person attains it, he depicts it according to his desires, according to his Partzuf [face] that he attains according to the qualities that he attains in the connection with the group, the friends, his partners. This is how he clarifies what Torah is, which are seventy degrees, and in each degree the Torah is interpreted according to the degree that one is in.] ‘’However, a world is a reality, meaning that anyone who comes to any of the seventy degrees in that world attains the same form as all the other attainers who came there. [The world is already something, it is a certain bigger degree which includes within it seventy degrees. Then, he attains that form just like all those who attained there. Meaning, there is a certain common attainment between all of the created beings when they come to a degree called ‘Olam,’ called world, they attained something that is common. Where is the matter of the degrees is a more individualistic thing, and each attains in some different form in his private individual way.
‘’From this extends what our sages say, who interpret the verses of the Torah [as we see how they write, where the Kabbalists write]. They say that this is what Abraham said to Isaac [and so forth, and the rest of our sages' articles. How did they say, how did they know what one said to the other. But rather, they are not talking about people, they're talking about forms of connections that there are between the degrees.]
They would say what they would say ‘’The question is, how did they know what one said to the other? [The question is asked, how do they know that which one said to the other? But as we already spoke about, as mentioned, because those who achieved the degree which is called ‘Olam,’ called world, they have this common feeling, common attainment, where the degree of Abraham would stand, let's say, or someone else from these forces, from these Partzufim [faces], the spiritual Partzufim. Then, they see and know on themselves from their attainment, from the fact that they now become that form of Abraham. Therefore, they see and know what Abraham knew and saw because now they're saying it, they know it, they attain this state and he lives in them, he's in them. Because there's no matter of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and people, etc. These are matters of degrees and states to which we enter, we go through them on the way towards our correction.] But because those who achieved the degree where Abraham (or anyone) stood, they see and know what Abraham knew and saw.’’
‘’For this reason, they know what Abraham said. [Because now they are clothed in that form, in that attainment, in that degree like Abraham, and therefore they are now called Abraham. That which a person attains in spirituality, accordingly that is what his name is called.] It is likewise in all the sayings of our sages that interpret the verses of the Torah. All that was because they, too, attained the degree, and each degree in spirituality is a reality, and everyone sees the reality, just as all those who come to the city of London in England see what is in the city and what is said in the city.’’ [That's it. That's actually what can, what do we have to take out of this, soon according to your questions we will clarify.]
3. S. (14:47) It's difficult to understand with our mind what you just said. For me it's not clear, for example. When you come to a certain degree, and you said that reality of one who was in that degree, as you gave the example of Abraham. Can you explain that a bit more?
R. Let's say you're at the movies, you go in to see a movie whether it is on your television or you are going to a theater, or to a movie theater, whatever is being presented for you there, and you are included there with some main character - the hero, that you are with there, and you identify with that hero fully. Then, as you lose yourself and enter clothing the character of the hero, you start to talk like this hero, and to do like this hero. That's called spiritual attainment. If you were to do so in your study that you are being taught, how you need to improve in order to reach resemblance to the Creator, so the degrees of being like the Creator are called the ladder. This is how you go and advance and become more and more like Him. There are altogether 125 degrees, if we're talking about degrees of worlds, or we could divide them to 70 degrees, and so on. It's not so important because the number is much more. Altogether, this is how we divide them in order to understand the essence of the degrees, that to the extent in which you resemble more to the bestower, by that you come closer to the complete form of the Creator to which you need to reach. That's the whole matter of the degrees.
S. I didn't understand how when I come to the degree of Abraham, how do I understand that I reached the degree of Abraham? What happens to me that I understand that I reached the degree of Abraham and not the degree of Noah, for example?
R. You discover it, you feel it. You start to see and feel and understand reality through the image of the character of Abraham. That's what it means that the degree of Abraham clothes you, or you clothe the degree of Abraham. That's why he says they know what each said, because the Torah doesn't tell us about people, that there was some guy Abraham - that, they tell little children, or to big children. We need to understand that we're being told about the degrees of attainment of the Creator, about the degrees in which we resemble ourselves to the Creator, and those degrees are called that way. The degree of Isaac, the degree of Abraham, the degree of Jacob, and even before that or after that. There are many degrees, many states which we need to clothe in, these seemingly heroes, these images. This is how, if we play with them, act with them like they are, that's called that I identify with them from within. Then, I adapt myself more and more to the form of the Creator until I reach adhesion to Him.
4. S. (19:29) I heard that we attain degree by degree in general?
R. Yes. There are more general attainments and more personal attainments. That is all relative to the attaining person, but it's not that it's some reality that changes. Reality is always the same reality, it's the light of Ein Sof [Infinity] that fills all of reality. Only we, to the extent in which we can adapt ourselves to the light of Ein Sof [Infinity] in our vessel as our vessel becomes more and more broad, unlimited. In this way, we call those degrees of closing to the degrees of Ein Sof [Infinity], degrees of attainment, the ladder, the Sefirot, the worlds, the Partzufim [face], etc. It's all relative to the people who are revealing, those who are actually under the reality of Ein Sof [Infinity].
S. The number 70 and 125, what's the connection?
R. There are many states that we go through until we completely reveal the Creator, which is the goal. This is all through our correction of our desire so it will open up more when it receives, and we will attach to it the intention in order to bestow. That is actually our corrections. To the extent in which we are capable to use our desire, which is egotistical to begin with, to perform a restriction, a screen and reflected light, and adapt ourselves to the force of bestowal of the Creator, accordingly we advance. This advancement, until we identify with the Creator fully, does not happen to us at once in one action, but rather in many actions which are called ‘hours, days, months, years,’ and so on, until 6000 years, which in this concept includes within it thousands of states that we have to go through. Kabbalists define them and reveal them in 125 degrees, in 70 degrees, in 6000 degrees, and so on and so forth. It depends what they want to tell us about in what we need to change on our way towards identifying with the Creator. But the end is clear to us, that it's all the desire that is revealed in a person and as much as he is in the system of Adam HaRishon that will be revealed, we need to invert it to be in order to bestow. Meaning, to join every desire that is revealed in us the intention in order to bestow, through the others, to the general force of the others which is called the Bore, the Creator.
5. S. (23:22) How not to confuse a real place with the imaginary world?
R. Advance more and more and identifying oneself with the articles and what's written in them, and then you'll see to what degree you are confused, and it's clarifying every single one of those concepts. It's written, ‘’There is no righteous in the land which has done good and has not sinned.’’ Meaning, we need to first enter into the sin, into corruption, into the error, to the darkness - to the fact that we don't want, don't understand, meaning all the discernments and feelings that are seemingly negative. Then, specifically from within them, we advance to states of clarity, understanding, feeling, and connection. That's how it is. It can't be you can't have one without the other, as it's written, ‘’There is no light unless from the advantage of darkness.’’ When we come to degrees of darkness that's already good. It's a sign that we will also reach the scrutiny, the clarification, of the light. It can't be any other way. It all begins with the night, and then day. You should have the morning and the night, and that's one day.
6. S. (25:27) How is the first degree felt?
R. How are they felt? I can't tell you that with words if it's felt then you need to do something with your feeling. They are felt as something from the discernment of connection that opens up for you the intention of bestowing which is outside of a person. Which leads a person to rise above one's nature and opens up for him the possibility to see reality in a different quality in a quality of bestowing this is called I have seen an opposite world.
7. S. (26:30) How to correctly imagine or depict the degree we climb to?
R. It's just like I am now but in a more connected manner, more bestowing to all of its parts to one another and in greater patience to one another, maybe in connection, maybe even in love. That's how we depict the degree which is above us compared to our state.
8. S. (27:22) We constantly talk about how the ten is our vessel for making contact with spirituality, how to imagine ourselves in such connection between us in our accumulated common experience, how by that we can reveal the next spiritual degree?
R. Try to reach the extent in which you can understand what love towards your friend is, connection with them, identification with them in your spiritual life. Then from that you start to feel the matter, the sources that we are reading and learning. That's how it is simply through the connection you have no other vessels, you have no other possibility of approaching vessels of bestowal. Other than through the connection with your ten.
S. In that feeling of love that is revealed between the friends it comes into expression as a result?
R. Of course the expression of all the spiritual degrees we discover first between us and the connection between us and the quality, that we will say connect between us a certain quality of connection between us, is called Abraham another quality another is called Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, David and so on. That's how they're called, it's not people. You understand it's not personas, heroes. These are the degrees, these are spiritual discernments that Kabbalists talk about in the form of seemingly as them being people of this world. But it's not, it's completely not.
S. He writes here that there is something imaginary that each one can imagine for himself and there's the attainment of spirituality something general that's apparent to everyone? How do we reach that general view?
R. After each of our efforts in coming closer to friends, one feels in his attitude towards them a certain inclination on his behalf that is common to everyone, everyone, a common feeling with everyone and this is how it begins to acquire qualities of bestowal. Certainly, the Creator here, the upper light that wants to be revealed inside his vessel, comes closer and performs all kinds of exercises with him, comes closer to him, distances from him, gives him all kinds of manners of what it means to come close, what does it mean to come farther from friends. Meaning to external foreign desires, vessels. On the other hand, those that are close as possible to him, as they're also doing all kinds of actions, what does it mean they're doing, the Creator through them is performing towards him all kinds of actions and this way we enter the practical spiritual work. That's called practical Kabbalah.
S. Let's say that in the ten Abraham is revealed or any other degree, so the friends will all feel it in the ten that we came to a certain state?
R. No, each according to his exertion, because you're already not talking about the spiritual 10, you are talking about the physical ten where you have people before you. Don't get confused and then each and every person in the ten attains it according to his effort, according to the root of his soul. But they all advance and they all bestow upon each other, therefore each needs to feel himself as responsible for the advancement of his friends and that's how we are all together that's already called Arvut. Meaning a mutual commitment that we support one another and we will discover and start to work on this with ourselves.
9. S. (32:43) In the Torah there are instances where the Creator turns to a person not just Abraham to Isaac, things like that, do we also attain that personally?
R. Yes, everything that's written in the Torah a person needs to reveal personally. That's called to write the book of Torah upon the heart of a person, the heart is called desire, so we need to inscribe everything that is spoken of in the Torah, about our desires. Meaning to process our desires and such a way, that they will change and take on the upper light that will clothe in them completely, that's called to write the book of Torah on your heart.
10. S. (33:42) When I am searching for the sensations of a new degree, I'm looking for it for myself. This is not an egoistic search of sorts?
R. For the time being you are thinking that way egotistically about everyone and about the friend, about the Creator. But gradually it's called the action of the reforming light which the force of the Creator, the light, bestows upon your will to receive. There is nothing in spirituality other than the upper light, the bestowing force and the will to receive, the lower force. Then, by you wanting to adapt yourself to the upper light, you want to understand it, you want to attain it, to come close to it, then you do this from the Reshimot, the records that remain from the shattering of Adam HaRishon. Then by that as you want to egotistically do so, to bring close to you the upper light, the Creator, and for the time being as you nevertheless want to bring him closer, you go according to all kinds of spiritual laws as well. Even though you're not completely aware of this, you come closer to the friends, you learn, you rise to the lesson, you participate with the others and this is how you slowly, slowly do some acts of bestowing. Therefore your heart and mind open up more and you begin to attain discernments from connection and that's how you advance, that's our way. The main thing is to understand that advancement is in connection in the ten.
11. S. (36:15) Is it worthwhile to aspire?
R. We cannot check such things how we perceive reality together as much as it is together or not, that will confuse us. Let's try to, now as much as possible, as we read these articles, try to robe ourselves in these articles, to clothe them and to simply clothe them upon us. Maybe it's not worthwhile more inwards because it will confuse us, it will simply. Also the articles themselves you see how they are each time giving us some opportunity to enter inwards to spirituality and once more we exit and again enter with another article and exit again. It's best if we try just as the article is written to identify with that which we read without adding all kinds of imaginary forms of ours.
12. S. (37:44) In the corporeal world, imaginary world we are very subjective of course because we are individuals and separated, each according to his perception, we can understand that. But in spirituality where we see the same form, the same degree and attain it, is it because the degree is tangible and permanent or because of the sensation of unity that we seemingly are one man and one heart, or something like that, that we see the same thing and not as individuals in separation in our spiritual sensation?
R. If we advance correctly then the soul of a person shall teach him. We begin to feel what we should do more and more in order to come closer to attainment. Attainment is not that we attain with our intellect like it is in our world. This is actually called being a wise guy where I don't attain the thing but I only understand it, perhaps how it is in my intellect. Rather attainment means as the hand attains, meaning the attainment is in your will to receive those changes, that improves, that is corrected and then what you feel in it is called attainment. So we need to try in each and every state of ours, to make our will to receive as much as possible unified, meaning connected between all of us. Then in disconnected desire in the ten, in mutual bestowing to one another we construct the common desire that can begin to feel the concept of the Creator, other than the Creator we have nothing to attain. It's possible to attain Him only in connecting the vessels that he created and He broke and prepared for us an opportunity to reach Him and to construct Him as if from cubes like from Lego blocks.
S. But the degree of Abraham is an attainment out of a feeling of unity, of connection there's no attainment as “I”?
R. You're right.
S. So the attainment is from some unification as we are one?
R. Yes, yes, sure each and every place I wish to attain more and more of our unity in order to attain in this unity the essence of this unity which is the Creator.
S. But is it still a subjective feeling like in our world?
R. How can it be subjective if you're coming from connecting all the friends in your desire, according to your desire and your understanding? Nevertheless it's from the connection to connection of the desires that are opposite from one another, you wish to connect them together. In putting together this puzzle, you are putting together the Creator, come and see, in such a way that you connect those pieces and you unite them together towards one goal. By that we attain the quality called BoReh, come and see, Creator.
S. So the attainment is from the mold of the ten?
R. Yes, but where does this mold exist? It doesn't exist outside of us, rather inside each one of us according to how well we are capable of putting together this mold.
13. S. (42:13) Could it be that I feel spirituality but don't discern it as spirituality or vice versa?
R. You can't say because you yourself were saying I don't know if it's this way or that way we need to continue to scrutinize it.
S. In order to feel spirituality do I have to have a screen, an individual screen or a common screen of the ten?
R. Each one of them has his own vessel. In the desire of each person is personal, that's how it's developed from the point in the heart all the way to the end of correction and by connecting himself more and more with others by identifying with others, it's only in order to make his personal desire more similar to the Creator to the form of the Creator. So consequently we do not change in this way, in our fundamental point we remain the same creatures as we were. Rather there is a point which is characteristic of each and every one, the point of departure and there is his connection with the other. To the extent that he serves the other that it appears to him from within his fundamental point, accordingly he is constructing the correct form of connection and by that he is building the vessel for the revelation of the force that is outside of him, the Creator. So it turns out that we are restricting our Malchut, we refuse to use the will to receive. We rise above the will to receive, to the Yesod to the above the Sefira of Malchut, the Sefira of Yesod. From the Sefira of Yesod we build our connection with everyone with all the upper 9, and to the extent we can connect with them or more precisely to serve them because we leave Malchut, we rise above it and as much as we can serve that which is outside of us in the ten, this is our spiritual vessel. In that we identify with the Creator and then we reveal in the upper 9 our connection, our identification with the Creator.
S. If I understand correctly that if I already received the screen and I build this connection that you now describe then in such a way I help my friends to receive the screen and then we connect between them and then there is common attainment?
R. Yes this is correct. According to the work I do in the group I come to the connection with the friend, this connection expands and it rises, the stronger it is, the higher it grows, until we attain inside this connection the one who constructed that connection and prepared that connection, which is the Creator. This is the meaning of I am first and I am last.
14. S. (46:35) On one hand we are taught that there are the 70 nations of the world and now it speaks of the 70 degrees, that we discover what the Sages want to teach us by the fact that the number is the same number?
R. We will discover that later, there's a distance between us and the Creator in that distance can be divided in two years in two different states into various degrees of light, of the vessel the screen, various Reshimot, Partzufim, worlds but all in all we have the nature of the created being the nature of the Creator, and how the created bringing approaches the Creator and that's it. The degrees of nearing are the degrees, you can name them in different ways, it has nothing to do with the times in our world or heights in our world or anything. Simply the amount of nearing of the created being to the Creator and according to the quality of bestowal that he acquires above the quality of reception that is revealed in him.
15. S. (48:20) About the difference between the qualities and degrees of Abraham and Isaac. Is that the measure of bestowal inside the vessel, is that what differentiates between them?
R. Yes, the difference between the degrees is according to the degree of bestowal that's revealed and later it's revealed according to the mode of bestowal. But here we have a question, are there two desires that can be in the same degree of bestowal? Maybe yes but, according to the force and intensity or according to the qualities which is something else. We will talk about it about different individual characteristics that appear in different degrees
16. S. (49:34) To the extent and which advancement is revealed in the ten, also it's revealed that our ten is not connected and the reason is in me, I am that reason. For the fact that we have to yet advanced enough and that state comes like a bomb and how to use this bomb now in this state?
R. Yesterday you were also not closer to the Creator and now you feel that you are more distanced from him. That's because they wish to bring you closer. I'm not sure which example to use, please look for them. Let's say I want to go somewhere so I take a general map of the whole world and I fly to Australia and when I come to Australia I take another map, and the distance that appeared very small between two places in Australia and the large-scale map. Now in the map that I opened before me the distance is much greater and there's a lot of things happening between these two cities and so on and so forth. Meaning, the more we wish to see these things with greater detail we get more details and the distance appears to be greater between them the scale becomes finer. The same thing here if I used to have a connection with the friends and connection with the Creator, pretty close connection that I can carry out quickly. When I'm making efforts to truly cover that distance, I can feel this distance getting bigger because the scale changes. We are entering a more detailed, a higher resolution map but it's a sign we are coming closer.
16. S. (52:37) What level of connection does the point in the heart represent?
R. All the degrees of connection emanate from the point in the heart. The heart is called the desire of a person and if we work in any way toward spirituality, towards connection, towards the Creator even if we don't want it or we don't understand it, it doesn't matter, we are already doing actions from within the point in the heart. That point in the heart begins to develop through our study, through our connections we form between us. That's our work to expand the point in the heart until it dominates the heart and all of the desires. That it will give us the intention to bestow over all of our desires.
17. S. (53:52) Every spiritual state is given by connection of two states. These new spiritual states are because there is a clash between new emotional states that we now see in different ways in this reality that we live in?
R. I don't understand. I don't understand the question?
S. These spiritual states are emotional states, feeling states?
R. Yes, all of them because it's in the will to receive, we attain in the desire to the extent to which our desire approaches bestowal, where it's willing to work in the opposite way to how it was initially. So to the extent it rises above that initial desire, to that extent we can reveal in him spiritual phenomenon but it's in the same desire we don't have any other vessel. That's why we say it all comes according to the intention, the intention in order to receive. Means we are in our natural desire with his intention and as much as we try to rise above the intention to receive to in order to bestow, which is expressed in the ten, in our attitude towards the world, in our attitude to the Creator eventually. Then accordingly we begin to attain in that same intention to bestow it will later be called reflected light and we begin to attain in it the Creator's attitude towards us which will be called direct light when we connect with him and reveal him, there's nothing more to reveal only the Creator or the Creator's attitude to us.
18. S. (57:10) How can we clarify or scrutinize that it is a spiritual state or a physical state?
R. The extent to which you are incorporated with the friends in one desire that includes many individual desires, to the extent you can be incorporated in these desires and you aim these desires to their center, to their origin, that's actually how you locate the Creator. It's like being in space. You can't locate the Creator and you don't know how to come close to him, but in your state, there is one guiding principle, other than you there are a few more like you and if you connect between you and you work according to the place of connection between you, in this way, inside this vast space you begin to locate the Creator or at least we're beginning to approach that place. The Creator is called a place, so we're coming closer to that place where we can locate him or detect him. We have no other scale to use no other discernments by which to aim yourself at him rather inside the space by adding together all of the inclinations and tendencies of your ten and as you bring them together and connect them correctly, this points to the direction towards the Creator and of course you have to constantly update this and aim himself at him more and more.
This is the matter of the precision of degrees, your sensitivity to the concept of the Creator, come and see, and according to how you raise the sensitivity you are approaching him, you are moving from one degree to another in this growing sensitivity and that's how you approach him until you actually detect them in the connection between you. That's why it's called Creator, BoReh, come and see you have connected to such an extent that in those connections you form each one is coming from his own qualities but you are looking at these qualities in such a way that from the sum total of your qualities you are building my image, that's what the Creator is saying. That's how we detect him and that's why it is called come and see. Hence everything depends on the connection between us, coming closer between us the effort we put into overcoming all the disturbances. These disturbances we understand, they are not disturbances but only means by which to direct us towards a more precise connection. So that a certain moment in our efforts will begin to detect him more and of course we will have mistaken and errors in location and distractions but it's only in order to eventually detect him more precisely. Locate him more accurately so inside these disturbances will begin to understand him and feel him. Disturbances will appear but with those disturbances if we make efforts to approach him then they stop being disturbances. They appear to us as the Creator's language. In a matter of the language the letters of the work which is black / white and that's how we come closer to him to the complete revelation of the Creator okay.
19. S. (01:02:21) What does it mean that we understand one another in the 10 if we are not yet in this true spiritual reality?
R. We do what Rabash recommends us to do, what is the question? Of course I don't know what to do, but Kabbalists write and we should try to do it. They write articles that we should read. So that it would influence me more powerfully I need to read those articles together with the friends. To try to connect using those articles and so on and so forth. This is what it is all about.
20. S. (01:03:21) The work, how in the connection between us can this be in relations between us?
R. We will come to it. It's not the topic yet.
21. S. (01:03:44) What does the Creator give us the feeling of this world and what is changing while we are correcting?
R. We don't need to discover spirituality from this world, rather we need to exist in this world corporeally, beastly let's say because in this world you're on the level of the animate degree and not more than that. So we don't have much connection to this world except that we need to use it as a basis for starting our spiritual ascent. It means that in this world we are detecting various forces, various qualities with which we can connect and from the point of connection we attain in this world, we can begin our spiritual ascent. And what's happening on the level of this world we accept it, and we take it only to maintain our physical our animal body in a way that allows us to continue to exist and build above it a spiritual degree. That's all that we need.
22. S. (01:05:15) What's the difference between a degree and a world?
R. A world is also a degree, it's a matter of a naming convention if you will. They provide these definitions. A world is a more comprehensive degree. A soul is in an individual state. And in the orientation of the soul in the world there are additional degrees that are points of reference for the connection of the soul to the world.
23. S. (01:05:56) Is it correct to ask for yourself a spiritual degree in order to bring your ten fully to it?
R. Of course but we need to understand what the meaning of a spiritual degree is meaning the force of bestowal, a force of love, a force of connection. This is the essence of the spiritual degree and if I ask for those forces of course it’s good, and I will work with them towards the ten later.
24. S. (01:06:27) Can the ten have a common degree of spiritual attainment?
R. Yes, of course.
25. S. (01:06:39) You answered Vlad that to feel a common degree in the ten the ten needs to be spiritual and not corporeal. What is the meaning that the ten is spiritual and do we need to aspire to be in connection with other Kabbalists on spiritual degrees?
R. If we are connected in order to bestow to one another and in order to connect with one another and bring our connection to the idea of the Creator, and love inside this connection, bestowal, then this means we are making progress. I have no more to add but with respect to other Kabbalists that appear in our time I can't say much. I don't know them, I'm not connected to them, I'm giving you what I received from Rabash and what I attained by myself, that's it, there's no more. Because after all I was with him for 12 years and after him 30 years. That's what I've got and that's what I'm giving you. What others are doing, where they are taking it from, what are they doing with it I don't know either for the good or for the bad. However I recommend not to be in several places simultaneously because that will certainly bring about confusion. If you are under my influence then enter it with all your vessels, all your heart and your brain. If you are with someone else, I have nothing to tell you except that I recommend for your sake for your benefit to leave me and be there. But to sit on two chairs, it doesn't work out to your benefit. It is to your detriment.
26. S. (01:09:02) Is the general perception of reality coming from the scrutiny of truth and false?
R. Yes, by scrutinizing what belongs to the degree of false which is always our degree, where we are, and the degree of truth, where we are connected in mutual bestowal to one another, and from the current state. In this way we climb from one degree to the next. Always from false to truth, from false to truth.
27. S. (01:09:40) Can three friends attain the Creator or do we need 10 friends for the Creator?
R. No, even two. It says the smallest majority or smallest collective is two, but more is better.