Morning Lesson June 14, 2022 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Baal HaSulam. The Freedom (Habit Becomes a Second Nature)
1.R. (00:20) Here in this article, certainly not by chance it is called The Freedom, so here Baal HaSulam explains to us whether or not we have freedom and how we can change our nature so that what we received initially is not freedom. We are born already with all kinds of qualities, with all kinds of fulfillments, satisfactions, we're like a computer, I cannot work with the metal there needs to be a pre-installed program and data and not just data, but this data needs to be connected to some program, to some software. So everything I install in it, will already, it will through its own software, it will change it into all kinds of things. In other words, the one who programs these things already set it up for me so that I will certainly come to a certain state and if so then where is my free choice, where is my freedom, it's a big problem. Is there a free choice or not? He is giving us a beginning into looking into these things and we will continue looking into these things, so please.
Reading The Freedom (Habit Becomes a Second Nature) (02:10)
2. R. (04:23) In other words the environment can push a person into such states where he will get rid of things that are seemingly bad or good, never mind, but he will change his habits so much so that through it his conducts will change entirely. The Creator sets these things up.
Continues Reading The fourth reason…(04:55)
3. R. (06:20) Because he really did add it up all the possibilities that can influence us even the third reason, the fourth reason, the third reason is habit but the fourth reason is such causes that are not directly through other factors they nevertheless operate on us. So of course in all those four factors we are in all those factors and it changes the question is should we sort them, check them, and check which factor to which factor, each thing that operates on us and in what way directly indirectly, how should we relate to it? Of course we have no way to scrutinize them, to clarify them, sort them, scientifically as in a laboratory or something but rather what we need to do is to work in general in relation to them. Meaning if we work correctly in the connection between us and the inclination to the connection between us then we can directly and indirectly change, organize all those factors in such a way that from a disturbance they become help, assistance.
Continues Reading: (08:05) “Any addition he can add…”
4. R. (08:44) This is our nature which is divided into our inner nature which each feels within him, and external where we have many such forms like circles around us, like shells, or spheres. We have no way to change these elements in any way to organize ourselves, how we are impressed and how we move through them. So all the inner and outer factors it doesn't matter to us how, they all come from the upper force and pressure us from without and from within and then we have what have we left to do? So let's see.
Continues Reading: (10:05) “However, when we examine these….”
5. R. (10:46) Yes, we had a part where we discuss it, where habit becomes a second nature and here he wants to explain it to us, the environment as a factor whereby through the environment we can correct ourselves we can become accustomed and participate in the environment by changing ourselves thus so our habits will acquire the habits of the environment. We see it in humanity as well, a person who moves to a different environment, where they behave differently, a different country, a different language, he completely changes and he moves from his previous form to a new form. So let's see the environment as a factor.
Continues Reading: (11:48) “This protection means that….”
6. R. (15:50) Meaning, not so simply, it's not so simple to connect with a true good environment rather we have to make a lot of effort and thought and a great deal of effort and discuss and study and decide how to build it in such a way that we will fit the Creator in a tighter and tighter way, from the environment to the Creator and then we are in this environment like in a ship, we reach the desired goal. This is not simple, we need to connect ourselves, each one needs to connect himself to the environment, arrange the environment as a facility in by which we can reach identification with the Creator. In other words all the actions, all the connections in the environment will be according to the qualities of the Creator and then we will build Him, as it is written you have made me, in connecting correctly according to spiritual laws between us from the corporeal world to the spiritual world. All of it through the free choice in a good environment.
7. S. (17:28) How can we increase the influence of the environment upon us as it seems the physical environment overtakes us?
R. I'm not talking about the external environment, only the ten.
S. How can I increase the influence of the ten on me?
R. This is according to how much you bow down and subjugate yourself toward them and how much you try to enter into them and not against their desire but according to how each one brings their own power you change the connection between you each time to a tighter connection that will be, that will resemble the Creator more. To such an extent that later you will begin to see how in the connection between you, you climb from Malchut to Yesod, to Hod, to Netzach, and so on and so forth. From below up.
8. S. (18:52) You said that when you connect in the ten it is according to the laws of nature, according to the qualities we build? What does that mean?
R. You connect in the ten according to the forces and laws of nature because the Creature is ultimately standing behind each actions and he's giving us opportunities and such changes in everyone in the connection between us that we would come to have connections like in a spiritual ten, where each and every one will discover that in each and every state he is serving as the tenth knot in the ten, the tenth connection and in this way you'll advance.
9. S. (20:00) the Creator created a created being that is cheap. What did they expect us to do with this quality?
R. Like all qualities like the quality of being stingy it is not being bad, it depends only how you use it. Like all qualities so being stingy, being frugal is good because you'll know how not to spread his resources but to actually use them for the right goal.
S. But Baal HaSulam presents it as a negative quality?
R. No, there is no such thing as a negative quality, it's how you use each quality. Each quality can be negative and positive.
10. S. (20:55) By engaging in the work in the ten, how many of these foreign states can the Creator help us change, will he change our essence by means of prayer?
R. Of course, you are correct, through the prayer you can change anything. The thing is that how much can we change, we need to change only in one thing, since all the changes were made by the Creator and all the changes were made by the deficiency we are raising to him. As much as we can connect in revealing the deficiencies and raising them to the Creator through a prayer of many, by that we obligate him to correct us, to adapt us to him.
11. S. (22:14) From the moment the point in the heart awakened and we entered the ten are we evolving in a clear route like wheat or every moment we have to sew ourselves in the ten?
R. No, we don't have to plant ourselves again, we are in development but the question is during development can we accelerate it? Because sometimes there are situations where the seeds rot and they don't rot in order to open inside of them for a stalk to grow but they simply rot, right away.
S. What causes them to rot?
R. In such a way, in such a lifetime, such an environment they cannot develop any further. This happens in a person who derides and disregards his environment, he does not use his environment to absorb the right things and he turns himself into a seed that rots away.
12. S. (23:40) You talked about habit becoming second nature, this means that I do not change my nature, I only get accustomed to a new nature?
R. A habit becomes second nature when I acquire a new nature and it becomes as my own nature.
S. What about my previous nature?
R. That goes deeper in, that's called love covers all transgressions.
S. Can it jump back and overcome again?
R. Sometimes it depends on what correction you're in.
S. What causes the environment to change my bad quality to become good?
R. As much as you are incorporated in the environment you bow down before it, you allow for them to control.
S. Control what?
R. This is called our Arvut, mutual guarantee, you believe them, you give them your whole future.
S. What do we give them, what do we let them control what?
R. You want nothing but to annul before them and before anything they decide on.
S. Do I aim somewhere by that, by giving me to them?
R. Yes, as much as you subjugate yourself in the society to that extent you will discover how the upper force is making you important in the society. But that is not the reason you are annulling yourself.
S. Rather?
R. You do it for the sake of annulment, your goal is for the sake of your ego to acquire in its place, the quality of the Creator, on top of your ego to acquire the quality of the Creator, acquire bestowal on top of reception.
S. So what is mutual guarantee, how do you define mutual guarantee?
R. When I deliver myself to the society and by that I acquire the attitude of each friend in the society and in this way we are building the Creator in us, between us. He's not outside of us, as much as we can connect between us, we build him in this way where he has to be revealed between us in this way. He is between us in practice, in actuality by selling ourselves to the ten by delivering, by devoting ourselves to the ten we are devoting ourselves to the ten, we obligate the upper force to reveal itself. How do we bring the Creator closer? By annulling our ego.
S. our second nature, habit becomes second nature. So Second nature is common for us in the ten?
R. Yes, we are advancing to being in the ten as one, each one will discover how much he doesn't want it, how much he's against it, how much he has to be connected to everyone and annul before everyone and he cannot do it this is all along the way.
S. In the part about stinginess he says to uproot a bad quality altogether, yet we are taught to not uproot any bad tendency?
R. We are not uprooting it, we are just lowering it in importance down to below zero and the Creator can bring it up whenever is needed.
13. S. (27:59) Tell us please, in spirituality the first factor, a source that doesn't change is the point of the heart and the three others are all the rest?
R. Yes.
14. S. (28:22) Tell us please, you said that we had to reach a common deficiency, the prayer of many, right? So how to start acting if in the end you reach a helpless and powerless?
R. The feeling of helplessness is on purpose to help him incorporate into the friends. You don't have any power and you will not have any power. How can you in spirituality and even corporeality, how can you obtain anything if you were by yourself, you are not a vessel.
S. How to start acting to perform and action if you know from the start in advance there will be no result from this action. Why should I do it?
R. The result will be in connection, through the connection in society, there will be the result. The result will be the Creator who is revealed in the ten otherwise no.
15. S. (29:45) Being inside the ten, how do we choose this environment each day. What is this frame of the ten?
R. By talking between us about how to, how to reinforce one another, you'll see how it works if you discuss it and you'll see the following day is there any change in it and if not cry out to the Creator, why can't we feel any changes?
16. S. (30:33) About the decision, we had an incident, we had a question and we didn’t reach a decision but it says if the situation has come to a point where this subject was canceled all together and we stayed each one in his own state, but it's as if everything is okay, everyone's happy and it's okay. Everything fell into place but I had a feeling that we missed an opportunity here, I mean we were able to annul before one another we didn't decide, the third factor came in and organized everything and we lost the opportunity, how to get the right decision, how to obtain the right decision in the ten?
R. There's no decision, you've reached a new state and previous states were revealed, it's going to be revealed, don't worry, your ten is good, everyone is learning, everyone is advancing. You'll discover it in a few states from now, if you can't decide on the question that you can raise to the Creator then let it go and in a few more states, a few more days, it will be revealed again.
S. But nonetheless how can we build an environment, how can we build a situation where the moment we annul before, completely before, the other that's what I want to ask about but when we don't annul and the situation seemingly has been missed, do you understand my question?
R. Nothing disappears but rather continue the way you continue and you will see how all those states will get clarified, rather you wish for them to be clarified in the order that you understand and they get clarified in a different order. The main thing that we learned today, at the beginning of the lesson, is that we want only the importance of the Creator to rule over us and for us to see that his glory fills the world.
S. How do we turn this importance to something common, that not each one is thinking about themselves?
R. Talk about that in order to ignite each and every one and the fact of the importance of the Creator is the only thing that we need, there is none else besides Him, other than Him we don't need anything. Wherein each and every moment I want to feel that I'm under his control to such an extent that I will feel that my hands and feet, my brain, my heart, they all work according to his direction.
17. S. (33:48) It becomes clear that choosing the environment means choosing the connection between the souls, between the parts of the vessel?
R. Yes.
S. The question is how to choose correctly every time to rise in the degrees? You explained that according to this choice we rise in the degree of the Creator? How do we do it correctly?
R. The first thing is patience, this is the most important virtue, it is not you that decides what is happening, then you're unhappy whether you are happy and this needs to be this way or another. Your intellect rather you are willing to bow your head before the actions of the Creator who alone decides anything. You are willing to accept each and every moment in as comfortable a way as possible. As much as your ego awakens and doesn't want it to happen and wants it to happen differently you subjugate your ego, you hit it over the head and you are willing to flow with the Creator. Then you'll see what it means to flow with him, it means to constantly subjugate yourself or perhaps there are other actions available. We will see such actions and reception and in bestowal where we begin to not only agree with him passively, but agree with him actively.
These are the degrees of the bestowal, the degrees of Bina and later even participate in his actions. This is already the degree where we receive an order to bestow. We will learn about this, I cannot, I'm forbidden from running ahead, it's not correct ecologically rather gradually and each one of all of us together, we will absorb these steps, one after the other. The important thing is that during the day you connect at least twice between you and you talk about these things, and as much as possible go over the lesson again.
18. S. (36:55) You said one sentence that can summarize all the four qualities you said that if we work together between us every disturbance becomes a help. What disturbance do you mean?
R. All the disturbances, it doesn't matter. There is None Else Besides Him and from the Creator you receive only the guiding forces towards the end of correction.
S. Why did he mention these four qualities that we just read about?
R. That's what he found corresponding to the four phases.
S. These are the disturbances?
R. For the time being, the will to receive are disturbances and if you rise above them as disturbances they become guiding forces. In place of disturbances, guidance.
S. This becomes help?
R. Yes.
19. S. (37:54) There is this concept of 'you have made me' is this about our rising above the bottom seven Sefirot.
R. I don't want to hear about the lower seven Sefirot. I don't want to talk about what we haven't discussed, don't confuse others to show everyone that you are smart.
S. You have created me, that is what I want to scrutinize.
R. No, no, If I want to teach you I would never ask you again.
20. S. (38:43) Why is choosing the environment of free choice, isn't it about the pleasure and pain of a person?
R. We discover free choice later when we go with the ten and we build the ten in such a way where we wish to detect all the forces in the ten and arrange them so they will be similar to the Creator. Try like kids who build sand castles, build figures out of clay. Try to depict it in such a way where there is a connection between us, between us. Where each introduces a quality of his own and from the connection, from the addition to these qualities we're building the Creator. Meaning for each and every quality of mine that I add to the connection of between us by that anul my eye and I turned his qualities to the force of bestowal. In this way combining all the different bestowals we build the Creator. What comes out to us from this mutual bestowal between us, this is the Creator, the upper force that is above us. Above us because in general each one raises this quality of bestowal above himself against his nature. There are the restrictions on the screen, the reflected light, that is what we will later learn about and realize and that is how we do it.
21. S. (40:42) We live in two environments, our material environment and Bnei Baruch. How can we interpret what we just read about the environment and the way it influences us?
R. The environment influences us with its spirit, to connect to reveal the Creator in all the tens and later and all of humanity.
22. S. (41:05 ) Is there a fifth factor besides these four factors that are called point in the heart?
R. The point of the heart is the beginning of the development of a person and if it exists in him, he is ready for spiritual development and that is the first thing, it is the primary thing.
23. S. (41:35) How do these two settle, place your hand on the good fortune, how does that settle with choosing the good environment?
R. Choosing the environment means to strengthen yourself in the environment to which the Creator has brought us. That is it. This is the problem. We can enter all kinds of societies, by the way there are many groups that study the wisdom of Kabbalah and other such things that are close to it, and here you also have free choice you can go and enter each and every one. We are not saying anything bad about anyone as long as the wisdom is being disseminated. After I received from Rabash his archive I distributed it among everyone. Let's say the book of Shamati that is now being published in several places and other such things. The main thing for me is to disseminate. I didn't think that by others disseminating there will be revealed and grow in the eyes of human society at large. It is not important to me, it is also not important to me where you will study, completely not important, as long as you reach the purpose of creatio. The purpose of life.
This is the first rule that has to be for a Kabbalist and it is not simple. The evil inclination on the other side, the Sitra Achra is working on us, constantly teases a person on how you are doing it and it awakens others like that. I'm hearing about people who were with us and then later for various reasons doesn't matter, they find themselves and other groups that study the wisdom of Kabbalah or maybe not so much the wisdom of Kabbalah. I don't know but I'm happy nevertheless that something is happening for them according to the way they see things. Let it be. Every person has a place that is more suitable for him. A person studies only where his heart desires but the important thing is to maintain his free choice. To make a calculation is he being pressured to stay or to choose a better place and more suitable place.
24. S. (44:40) How can we choose a better environment every time if I am in the same ten and I cannot move to a different ten?
R. It doesn't matter. The ten that you are in will go through all kinds of states you cannot even imagine. It doesn't matter. You can stay in the same ten and see how much your states will change and the Creator is already taking care of it.
25. S. (45:16) If the ten is idle for a long time and no action leads to a better state should I think about changing my environment?
R. You should consider changing yourself.
26. S. (45:33) Is it the choice and environment or is it the choice of the intention to restrict in order to bestow? Is there a difference between those two elements or are they the same?
R. Everything is realized in the ten.
S. If the Creator chooses our environment where's the free choice there? Do we have a choice to restrict but we have a choice to select our environment?
R. Exactly you are answering it precisely. That is what is written there. The Creator brings a person to the fortune and places his hand on the good fortune and what depends on the person is only the strengthening, only the strengthen it. All the rest the Creator is doing, to grow stronger and how you connect to ten you are in, awaken them more, connect to the more, embrace them until you feel in the connection between you the Creator.
S. Our choice is to agree?
R. Of course.
27. S. (47:40 ) Since it is said that the main environment is the ten, how can we change the approach to the work in the ten so we don't feel too much over routine, too much of her comfortable work?
R. Only the connection in the ten can save us from any harm, only additional connection.
28. S. (48:05) What are the signs for the right spiritual connection in the healthy environment?
R. To the extent that friends become closer to me, this is a sure sign that we are approaching spirituality.
29. S. (48:27) Can we point to the main obstacle that stops us from connecting correctly?
R. The main obstacle is clear. It is the pride in each and every one. I wish to be more than everyone< I wish to decide things between us, I disagree with others, rightfully or not. I feel inside of me that something is being revealed. Something in me awakens and that is my evil inclination.
30. S. (49:00) When we pray to the Creator in the ten there is a feeling that we're talking and asking for something that is transparent. We do not know how to identify his response. How can we make a dialog with the Creator with a clear response?
R. To the extent that we connect between us and we try to come out of ourselves and connect with others. By that we are creating the conditions for the revelation of the Creator, the feeling of the Creator. I seemingly create reflective light in that and I raise it above myself towards the friends. In his tendency to raise it above me towards the friends, in this inclination I build the conditions for the revelation the Creator.
31. S. (49:55) every day we're talking in the ten, we want to build the Creator between us but it doesn't happen. What should we improve?
R. What I already said, just try to rise above my ego and connect with the friends.
32. S. (50:15) When a person places himself in an environment, can he count on the environment as acting in a good way? We see the importance of the environment sometimes decreases
R. It is because you don't care about it. Why else am I coming to the lesson? To learn how to connect all the way until we build the Creator between us.
33. S. (50:45) What do I subjugate to in the environment?
R. Toward the central point in this society where everyone's hearts are.
34. S. (50:59) How can the ten choose a better environment together?
R. The ten can build a good environment by choosing it's more advanced state in connection.
35. S. (51:15) If each moment I am under the control of the Creator does't it take the responsibilities off of me?
R. No. I should always be responsible over everyone, not to control everyone but to be responsible over everyone, like a mother caring about her children so no harm will be inflicted on them so they will play in a nice way and reach good results. She helps them.
36. S. (51:51) By annulling myself do I acquire freedom?
R. Of course only then do I acquire freedom. Freedom is the freedom from the angel of death, meaning from the person's nature. Well by this we will be back to TES.