Morning Lesson December 19, 2021 Transcription
Transcription is made from simultaneous translation which leaves a possibility for differences in the audio
Part 1:
Baal HaSulam - Shamati 203. Man's Pride Shall Bring Him Low
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1. Rav’s Introduction: Yes, we learn in the wisdom of Kabbalah especially from the articles of Shamati, different directions, meaning information that guides us on how to advance more and more toward the goal. We advance not in steps but in always improving, correcting ourselves, adapting ourselves more and more to the Creator’s nature. In addition to the request we also need additional information, how we can truly change ourselves so that we would feel such phenomena, in such phenomena, when we attain these phenomena we become closer, more suitable, more fitting to the Creator. There are those discernments in it which we feel in ourselves and there are such discernments that we cannot feel but we have to believe that if we do it this way we will advance. One of the principal things, most important things that separate us from the Creator is the matter of lowliness and pride. If we know how to properly arrange these, then both the pride and the lowliness have to be in the person since this is what the Creator created, but how to relate to these two qualities, how to arrange them so he would optimally and in the fastest way possible use them in order to get closer to the Creator. We know in our lives as well what is called pride and what is called lowliness and it happens to us both where we are up then we are down, how we feel ourselves more or less to other people, towards something, towards ourselves. Accordingly we need to scrutinize how the work in pride and lowliness can help us approach the Creator, resemble the Creator to be adhered to the Creator. Let's read it and think about this. It is a short article and the idea is seemingly simple but if we pay attention, we realize it and we work with it correctly then we orient ourselves significantly towards the Creator.
Reading Shamati 203. Twice
2. R. (09:30) If a person removes that suffering meaning he is not suffering for himself but because the Creator is not high enough in his eyes he is not wearing pride enough, then he can check how much he advances, how suitable he is, to what extent he is placing this garment on the Creator. Where according to this garment he feels himself lowly towards the Creator, accordingly the Creator becomes greater in his eyes according to the garment the person builds in him, creates for him and we can see accordingly how much we are advancing. In other words to take the pride from oneself and pass it on to the Creator and take his lowliness also to the Creator but in an opposite manner, meaning we are prepared to suffer from our own lowliness. Let it suffer, our body meaning our ego, as long as by that, I am bringing myself to the correct state, who am I compared to the upper force. Then each time I work on man’s pride shall bring him low. Meaning I see everywhere I turn, my pride and accordingly I feel specifically my lowliness and to the extent I can rise above it and advance then this pride of mine becomes lowliness and in its place I feel the Creator who is high. Who is on high and in this way I exchange my clothing of bestowal because what can you be proud of. With the clothing of the Creator, I want to clothe in Him, I want to adhere to Him and whatever he has I am prideful of that and I see myself advancing this way.
3. S. (12:38) What can help the person to reveal his lowliness?
R. The person lowers himself, humiliates himself before the friends and Rabash writes about it in the Shamati articles and the social writings. The more zeros he has before the one, he advances and he exchanges his false pride with his true lowliness because who is he, other than a will to receive.
4. S. (13:13) We were created in a state of lowliness but each one is proud of his beastliness. R. Where in the group? (Student continues) No, in general, in life. We are prideful towards each other and when we begin the spiritual work, do I feel more pride?
R. You may enter in the true spiritual work on the condition that you learn correctly how to use your pride and also within the framework that you have in the group. There you are not ashamed you are not concealed but you can humiliate yourself before the friends openly and this is actually good, just don't turn that into a form of pride. Look how great I am, how low I can go, how much I can humiliate myself, this is a lie but try each time more and more to see yourself and show yourself as lower and humiliated before the friends this is good. But only in the group and everywhere else, we need to remain and behave like everyone else, meaning I am not putting on any pressure, I am not showing any pride, I am remaining neutral as much as I need it according to my role and this is how I need to behave. In the group each one needs to try and lower himself and humiliate himself and by this we approach or at least we see examples between us and we feel in ourselves what it means to humiliate himself before the Creator. Whatever we have towards the friends we can then pass it on towards the Creator.
5. S. (15:58) What does it mean that pride and lowliness go hand-in-hand, are they not different emotions?
R. They are opposite but they clothe on our ego on our will to receive. It’s like in an ocean, the highs and lows, the high tide and low tide and it is the same with us. They clothe on our ego and according to the force of the ego in a person, accordingly we rise in our pride or we fall, when we fall we also fall from our pride to lowliness. What we need to do is to replace our values, so you would measure it not relative to us, but relative to the Creator. The higher the Creator is in my eyes and accordingly, as the lower the reins, he wears pride as much as I can feel accordingly that I am falling and also the Creator is falling in my eyes and accordingly I glue myself to the Creator. I am proud that the Creator is great in my eyes and he is proud and the lower the Creator is seen in my eyes, this means that I am falling and I am in lowliness. This is a measurement of one’s adhesion when I go up and down according to how much the Creator in my eyes is going up and down and I work on it.
S. (18:15) So what is the pride based on, what should it be based on the greatness of the Creator?
R. What do you mean to base our pride on? I need to feel proud that I have an opportunity to replace the lowliness and pride that exists in the average person. That he feels himself relative to the others. I do not measure myself relative to the others I measure myself relative to the Creator as much as I can be in a state where I humiliate myself toward the friends and the Creator. The friends are the medium between me and the Creator and then I can check how much I am advancing towards the state where I am completely glued to the Creator. As big as He seems in my eyes, I think I am big, as lowly as He seems in my eyes God forbid, I think I’m lowly and that’s the matter of adhesion.
6. S. (19:47) What is the state between the pride and lowliness, is this correct towards the Creator?
R. Whatever you feel towards the friends is what you feel towards the Creator. If I am in a state of pride or lowliness directed to myself or towards the friends or the Creator, relative to the friends and relative to the Creator, is one and the same. To the extent that I appreciate, I value the group the friends and in the same way for certain, I appreciate the Creator.
7. S. (20:45) Why do we use the word lowliness or humiliation to humiliate? It is a very tough word and I do not want to accept this term, why?
R. Try to imagine that you feel yourself on a certain height which is you feel your self-worth and everything you have in life, and suddenly you are being humiliated, and you are humiliated justly. It is not that the police come and arrest you and you are certain that you did not deserve it so you have not lost your place so to speak, but let's say that you have been caught and 20 years ago you have done something improper, inappropriate. And then you feel the humiliation before everybody, before your children. This is the meaning of the person being in lowliness. The question is should we come to know these things or not? So they tell me if I glue myself to the Creator, if I adhere myself to Him, then the more I go through these stages, these states of humiliation, I take them as help to be adhered to the Creator. This is the matter of a man's lowliness should save him and man's pride shall bring him low, but this is only in the group. In the group we should behave according to the laws of the spiritual world whereas relative to the outsiders to the whole world we do not need to show ourselves in this way.
8. S. (23:23) In a practical way how to humble ourselves before the Creator?
R. Towards the friends, towards what Kabbalists write to us, to keep our obligation in the ten first of all. This has to be, and to the extent I try to do this and I am ready and willing to connect to the friends and do what we decide according to the rules of society that Rabash writes about, this for me is the first step by which I am trying to be humble, As Rabash writes how many zeros have to be before the one, how many ones before he zero? Remember there is an article like that, and then accordingly we say that the more zero I can be towards them…but in spirituality it is the other way around. It’s how much I can grow until I reach the true zero, and then I began to enter spirituality, only on that condition. Because in such a relationship between man and his friends he can check himself to what extent he has a screen or not, where is he, what’s his place? If I can hold myself towards the friends in such a way that I simply annul myself towards them it means that I am willing to annul myself towards the Creator, towards the upper light meaning I’ve reached a state of restriction. And then beyond the restriction I begin to grow in bestowal, how to give myself, how to humiliate myself in practice, meaning to perform acts of bestowal. This is how we advance in spirituality. We have to think about those words. I do not want to over interpret them so it will not push back or scare some of our newer friends but think about this because the spiritual world is an upside down world and there he who is lower is higher. This is a relative to one’s ego. Each and every one has to see himself to feel himself. You cannot see it on the outside, rather if you see it from the outside it is a sign that the person is not doing it on the inside. This is why the wisdom of Kabbalah is called the concealed wisdom.
9. S. (26:48) What is the connection between greatness of the friends and greatness of the Creator?
R. I can say about the friends that the Creator gave me room to adapt myself to Him, to the Creator. The way I relate to the friends is how I seemingly am willing to relate to the Creator. This is why it’s written through the love of people to the love of the Creator. And the difference is the attitude towards the friends is more important than the attitude towards the Creator because on one hand of course the attitude towards the Creator obligates me, that’s on a global level, generally speaking, but my attitude to the friends in practice determines how I truly relate to the Creator.
10. S. (27:54) What does it mean that suffering and lowliness go hand in hand?
R. It is good, because if I were lowly but I couldn’t feel that it’s lowliness because I couldn’t feel suffering in that state, then what good would that do me? I would remain in lowliness and never understand that it is lowliness. As it says together the legs constantly walk in the litter and all those dirty places, but they do not feel degraded because that is their place, that is how they were born, how they exist, and how they grew up. This is why when we rise from this world to the spiritual world we constantly need to think where we are, how are we arranging ourselves. That’s why lowliness and pride should be a form of measurement for us. Are we taking this measurement from ourselves towards the Creator where according to how the Creator appears in my eyes so I measure myself. How do I know it relative to the Creator? The Creator is never attained but only relative to the society, to the vessel. So I need to arrange myself towards the vessel, towards the group, the ten and accordingly I check. The more the friends are greater and greater in my eyes together with the fact that I also feel how lowly they are, like the students of Rabbi Shimon who wanted to kill each other, and according to how many states I go through and feel them in practice, this is the indication for my advancement. But if I cannot feel the friends with each passing day or relate to them correctly but just to a small extent, it does not matter much or bother me enough, then I don’t advance towards the Creator. My attitude towards the friends has to be in contrast to my pride and my lowliness. These relationships indicate how much I can also be in the same relationship towards the Creator. And here we surely need to keep ourselves on our toes, not let ourselves rest and see how the pride of the group, the greatness and importance of the group has to be greater and greater in my eyes, greater and greater felt as the main thing in life. This means that I am beginning to appreciate and value the Creator and to relate to Him more and more correctly, properly. And if together with that I feel my lowliness then all the better. In practice I need to humiliate myself before the friends and in this way I also humiliate myself towards the Creator and I am willing to do everything the Creator wants. And there are various actions we need to keep and implement and will need to keep because the Creator wants us to do this. And I have nothing special in those actions that would give me joy or make me scared or on the contrary be positively impressed. Instead all those things that I have to do, they are all spiritual actions where I have no taste in order to bestow. And I, through the friends, need to learn how to do this and how to enjoy the fact that my body cannot feel or even suffers, and I enjoy since I am doing this for the sake of the Creator. And by this I can measure my pride and my lowliness and accordingly I begin to receive new discernments from my spiritual states.
11. S. (34:00) Is there pride in spirituality?
R. The pride in spirituality is when I feel proud about how great the Creator is in my eyes. In order to see the Creator as great in my eyes I have to lower myself, humiliate myself. How will I feel that He is great, in what? I cannot discover Him but to the extent I can lower myself towards Him by taking upon myself various orders, commands from the society, from the Creator, I try to do that. By this I lower myself and then I attain the pride of the Creator, the greatness of the Creator. Here I measure how great the Creator is in my eyes and how much I can humiliate myself. And this is how we advance. We will learn, and those are very precise measurements we have in spirituality because otherwise we cannot enter the spiritual world.
12. S. (35:50) Please help us clarify. Is it correct that each one in the ten, each on their own level higher or lower must long to be the heel?
R. Yes. As Rabash explains to us that I have to be the 0 relative to the 1 and 1 relative to the 0, the group learns about this.
S. And according to this article it turns out that I will have no problem to lower my head but my friend…
R. None of us is either a heel or a head. Each one has to arrange himself this way. The lower the person can make himself, because he is all pride, the ego; the more the person humiliates himself in practice towards the friends then he humiliates, lowers his ego to the friends. And by this it’s starting to grow in him the other measurement, the spiritual measurement. The more he is a zero then he is indeed higher. And we can feel proud about that. According to the measure of personal humiliation the person can be proud of what he reached. This determines the height of his spiritual degree.
13. S. (37:46) Many times this question arises and I want to clarify it. Yesterday you said that we should be as organs in a single body and also that each one who is greater than his friend his inclination is greater. So each who is greater has more suffering and he is craving to be the heel and to nullify?
R. Of course. A person comes to us to study. If he has a small desire in the beginning then he does not feel much suffering, he does not feel so many disturbances and he advances like the majority of the friends in BB. If he is an especially big egoist then he feels difficulty. He does not understand all the spiritual discernments, he is not refined, pure, he is not spiritual. He doesn’t grasp spirituality so much. He has a strong desire but this desire is opposite to spirituality for the time being. So although his desire is strong he does not quite make it to spirituality. And there are those people who have a small desire but this desire doesn’t separate them from spirituality so much compared to the ones with the big desire, the big ego. Hence he feels himself as if advancing slower. He cannot hear, cannot feel. For him it is as if the others are more spiritual, more successful, and this person is not so. I see it on them. They try, they shake their heads, they try but they don’t advance much according to external discernments because their ego is big and does not let them take a step forward and then another step. It is very difficult. And time passes. If they do not leave then after a long time his friends felt various discernments a long time ago and they’re seemingly blossoming in spirituality. They are advancing and connecting between them but he cannot feel this. He cannot feel that he needs to connect with them. He cannot feel that spirituality is attained within the friends. It takes even dozens of years before a person refuses to leave and starts to acquire the first spiritual discernments. It’s because his ego is heavy, this is what he got from the system of Adam HaRishon. Later he goes forward and he will have great big vessels, but his start and entire path is much more difficult. But can you do? He who is greater than his friend his evil information is also greater, but when will it be greater? When he overcomes his entire desire, inclination.
S. We become one body specifically by yearning to be the heel?
R. Yes. We become one system, one body to the extent we annul ourselves to the society, to the group, to the ten. Only in this way can we begin to connect between us and to the extent each one is trying to connect, to that extent we enter spirituality. This is why here the condition that they should help his friend, I don't help anyone, I help myself because I’m building the system, the ten, since the Creator is revealed in the ten. And here the advancement of the friend is more important for me than my own advancement and I need to worry about everyone since our success depends on everyone. For our boat not to drown in the stormy seas we have to bring those things to a feeling and feel ourselves alive.
14. S. (43:29) I do not want to see my lowliness. What should I do to see it? Should I pray?
R. You have to try to practically humiliate yourself before the friends. Agree with what they are saying, try to do what they want to do, anything you are capable of doing together with them you have to do.
15. S. (44:11) If a friend in the ten does not know if he is showing his lowliness in practice in an exaggerated manner or wrong manner what can the ten do to help?
R. Set an example, a clear example for that person of what the ten expect from him.
16. S. (44:43) Is the pride and lowliness clothing of annulment in the ten?
R. It is correct. Your friend is right. Pride and lowliness are called in the wisdom of Kabbalah clothing, garments. The more we can clothe in them, feel that we’re clothed in them, to that extent we can measure ourselves. And only according to our pride or lowliness can we measure our degree, our efforts, our attitude towards the friends and the Creator. Everything according to this garment.
17. S. (46:05) The ego is willing to humiliate itself when there is a good calculation behind it, when it pays off. So how can you know if you lower yourself correctly?
R. That is beautiful, the fact that the ego wants to be in pride, and a person understands that he needs to be in lowliness towards the Creator or the ten which are one and the same. Then the person has to practically humiliate himself, lower himself towards the friends. And Rabash writes about it, Baal HaSulam also writes about this. We have to find these sources. He writes that it helps practically to lower oneself before the friends and this is how we can advance. To lower means to accept what they decide to do, what they agree on, to be like a baby in their hands on one hand. On the other hand, try to integrate among them as best as you can and do what they decide. At least in that you are advancing together with them. That’s the minimal condition, the initial condition, and later more and more according to your investment in being together with them.
S. But it is only when it pays off that I am able to do it.
R. So you should make a calculation of what pays off. It pays off to listen to your ego or it pays more to listen to the Kabbalists who recommend you to do such and such actions. You need to make the calculation yourself.
S. But the ego tells me that it is worthwhile to lower myself now because I'm going to get something in reward.
R. OK. So for the time you’re like that. It’s called Lo Lishma but at least it is in the right direction. You are still working in the part of the work called Lo Lishma, not for her sake. It’s like when you tell a child that if you study well I am going to buy you a ball, and then he studies to get the ball but for the time being he studies. And he becomes smarter, and in place of the ball that he wanted he wants me to get him a computer. This is what is called from Lo Lishma to Lishma. The child learns to study to get a ball and his desire changes as a result of the study to want a computer. Let’s say this is called Lishma in his state.
S. And a good result from lowering yourself towards the friends, is it joy or the opposite that the ego suffers?
R. The ego should suffer. You should be glad the ego is suffering. Rabash used to say it like that. He used to point to himself, to his ego and say “let it suffer” with contempt. We need to try and peel ourselves from the ego, peel the ego off and see these things as two. It’s not the same thing, you are not the ego. The ego is attached to you and you need to peel it off, to truly remove this garment of lowliness and in its place you are dressing in the Creator's pride, the greatness of the Creator in your eyes. This is the feeling that we will gradually acquire.
18. S. (50:40) A person makes an effort to nullify himself towards the friends to be lowly towards them. What does it mean to reach the clothing of the Creator?
R. The person wants to be in the same pride as when he is clothing of the Creator. When he appreciates the Creator that should also be his clothing. He feels pride in how he is raising the Creator above his head.
S. How does one raise the Creator above his own head?
R. He prefers it this way. He tries to do it potentially and then in practice, but the person should make these exercises. Even if he can’t do them in his feeling at least he can do them in his mind and intellect, and gradually it goes from the mind to the feelings.
19. S. (51:51) The clothing of the Creator brings to lowliness or the other way around? What comes first?
R. The more we raise the Creator than against that we will be able to lower, humiliate ourselves. And this humiliation of ourselves will be a constructive humiliation, not the kind when as a result you have no strength or anything. We need to be careful to lower ourselves only relative to the greatness of the Creator in our eyes. Otherwise it will be like many such faith and belief systems where people humiliate themselves, degrade themselves, throw dirt and waste on themselves to show others how much they feel lowliness. But in truth it will only raise their pride inside of them.
20. S. (53:30) On the Creator’s part, how does He want to see the pride in a corrected fashion?
R. Because you adhere to Him and you are proud about the connection to the Creator.
21. S. (53:52) From listening to the text it feels like when I used to look at great athletes with their huge confidence, and on the other hand they are humble and have to work hard to attain everything. Is that similar?
R. No, because there, they have the goal of self-pride, how great they should be. We are in it to a small extent but our greatness is in how much we can be adhered to the great Creator through the friends, through the great group. The more we can be a zero relative to the group and the Creator by this we will be great as a result of the adhesion. Our goal is the adhesion, through the adhesion we get it.
S. So we need to conduct ourselves with self-confidence, right?
R. The confidence will come from adhesion, everything is attained through the adhesion.
22. S. (55:17) Sometimes we see that the Creator humiliates a friend through suffering. What is the right attitude of the ten to that kind of lowliness?
R. In any place and any state you have to help the friend. Lend at shoulder, help him, be with him in his place in order to save him from that. It does not matter where he's getting all those philosophies around it, it does not matter. If I can help a friend I do not care about the reason or the states, I must help him, that’s it. Just as I would have wanted to do that for myself, similarly I have to help him. There are no philosophies here, there are no calculations. Imagine that in place of your friend it is your beloved baby and everything that you want to do for the baby do the same for the friend.
23. S. (56:48) Every day that passes I feel how much I cannot be without the friends, I am worthless without the friends. I really feel that the friends are my strength. The question is if it’s recognition of my lowliness or is it pride that I was given the best thing from the Creator?
R. Pride and lowliness go hand in hand and one does not cancel the other like in this world. It does not cancel, like in a spiritual Partzuf we have coarseness and we cannot have refinement without coarseness. We just need to have restriction, screen, reflected light according to the intention; and all in all the greater, the coarser you are in your foundation, the more of an egoist you are then you can turn it when it’s refined with the intention to resemble the Creator. So there is no fear here that the pride of the person should lower him. On the contrary there will be more pride. More pride will be revealed and we will turn it into lowliness, humility and refinement. You are capable of doing this according to what I am feeling and hearing now. Let's see what is going on with the women. Women have a problem with pride, it is much greater because according to nature it is a different kind of pride. It is not the same as men's.
24. S. (58:45) I don't feel the lowliness towards the friends, I just acted out in front of them. Do I need to ask the Creator to make me feel true lowliness?
R. Yes, beautiful you should do that.
25. S. (59:06) How can I measure myself to see that I'm truly lowering myself towards the friends or it just seems to me that way?
R. Even when it seems to you this way you have to do it. I have to do everything so the friends will also see that I am humiliating myself towards them. Then I can see how much they appreciate my humiliation towards them or how prideful they are, and they begin to show themselves as greater relative to me. Accordingly, we can see where they are. A person needs to appreciate greatly the lowliness of the friend towards the ten, and support it and learn from it.
26. S. (01:00:03) If I try to lower myself towards the friend but she laughs at me and takes pride, my confidence is hurt, what should I do?
R. Continue to humiliate myself towards the ten, even if my ten is small and it's not capable of appreciating my efforts, I expect nothing from them. I only thank the Creator for having the possibility, the opportunity to humiliate myself before the people that he chose because ultimately it is the Creator who is arranging everything behind the scenes. We can’t see now but we will see it later how the Creator arranges everything and in the ten it is even more. Therefore I need to humiliate myself even more in the ten and then to continue and I will see how they will change. We should not forget here, what does it mean that they change, it's the extent to which I change accordingly I will see them changing, there are no friends here, there are certain demonstration of the Creator towards me, if I submit myself to worse them it means I can relate myself towards the Creator and the Creator will change them will play with them change them towards my eyes so that I see that they change for the better for the worst depending on what I need. Think about it, there is no group, there is nothing, there is None Else Besides Him, there is I who needs to recognize it and the group is in the middle. Through the group I'm going to reveal the Creator all the ways the Creator reveals himself before me and then more I relate to them. That's how I relate to the Creator and the way they relate to me, it's how the Creator relates to me. I have to practice how to work with it except for the ten, I relative to the ten and the ten relative to me and the Creator is concealed behind them and then till I see all the friends, women, men, I begin to see the Creator's attitude. It's like the inner force that exists in the ten, the light that fills the connections, the relationships between us. We will approach these things and come to them and practice fairly soon.
27. S. (01:03:30) What inner intention should we correctly receive in respect I get from the ten for dissemination or other activities that I do?
R. I need to accept respect and a good attitude from the ten and show them that I'm grateful, that it is very important to me, just like a person who receives a gift he cannot say, oh he brought me a gift, and I will take it. Of course it's improper. It's not nice, regardless of the gift I will accept it with a smile and show how important it is to me and so on and so forth. This increases the peace in the world, it increases the good connection in the world. That's how I must relate to what the friends are doing for me.
28. S. (01:04:40) How from a state of lowliness that's when my pride is hurt, how do I achieve equivalence of form with the Creator?
R. I position myself neutral first. This is called the place, the judge, the judge has to be neutral and I look where I am and from that place I need to begin to judge things, to evaluate things and then you will see how these things acquire different forms. It's like a theatre when there is a scene, there is a stage and characters in a certain act or acting and I can change those things, if I can see it more internally, how the Creator is doing it, will see it later this is an advanced example, from that we will see new reality.
29. S. (01:06:00) How is lowliness different from annulment?
R. The difference between lowliness and annulment, lowliness is my feeling and annulment is my action in practice when I annul myself towards the Creator, I practice as it happens towards the friends.
30. S. (01:06:30) Do I need to feel a state of lowliness while also feeling the greatness of the Creator?
R. The two are interrelated, interconnected as much as one falls the other gets up, that's why it's called in the wisdom of Kabbalah my lowliness and the greatness of the Creator are like what kids do a see-saw one goes down one goes up, the one goes down and the other one goes up. We have to be happy about those states, like kids and our game will be good for everyone and will bring gladness to everyone so I have to be lowliness or pride, lowliness or pride but constantly keep in motion and we join the motion. Like little kids we enjoy the motion not that I am all the way up or down, it doesn't matter if I'm constantly in joy I advance. We still need to connect to the seesaw. It's how the pump works, it draws and then gives, draws and gives, we need to see how in our work past all the discernments until we get to the spiritual discernments.
31. S. (01:08:38) Can the friends and their spiritual work promise something to each other and sometimes not follow through? Does it have to do with some self-confidence and pride or is it something else?
R. A person can give promises to the others because it will obligate him above and beyond his forces and he will run away from the group. We had such instances and it's not recommended to do it. Unless he talks to the friends about it and they all agree with his advice to do things a certain way and everybody agrees to hold on to it and maintain it, that means the decision of the group will sustain that decision, that resolution, not that the person stood by himself, who is he? He is the result of the influence of the environment upon him, the person does not have any freedom, his future depends only on the level of adhesion to the group and the adhesion radiates in him the force of confidence. Only in this way so our connection in the ten, in the small boat that's what gives us confidence in the stormy sea.
32. S. (01:10:19) What's the difference between lowliness towards the ten or towards friends?
R. The ten is my friends together, I don't have any other friends, I count the friends in the ten and outside of the ten where there are other friends of course, or supporters, but when we are speaking of friends we are talking about the ten with whom I have that Arvut, mutual guarantee the deeds of the contract and that's how I advance.
33. S. (01:11:09) If we were not yet at a spiritual height how not to not get used to the lowly place of the legs and how do you yearn to rise from it?
R. It's written in a few places that the person has to humiliate himself so try to humiliate yourself towards the friends in practice and in truth if you're ready to advance the Creator will arrange such things for you. When you feel yourself humiliated to such an extent that you feel the friends want to throw you out of the ten because you are totally unworthy and maybe even harmful and other such things, it all depends on the extent to which a person is going through the states of work with the friends. Let us see ourselves as Jonah the prophet when they threw him overboard and they sent him out and accepted him in all those places so he had to flee to the sea and then he came back. Meaning there such states in spirituality we cannot understand what's going on with us, but the main thing regardless of what they're doing with you, you're not leaving the path you're holding onto it as long as you can prevent your fall. Also from the perspective of the friends they need to understand that if they are throwing out the friend, it is the last resort, it is an extreme condition where they say to a friends, go, leave us, they have to tolerate him see how much he is as a harmful force and how to turn this harmful force to positive beneficial force. We need to look at all ten each one of us and see any such forces and use them correctly, there are many things but we have to accept that first and foremost there is None Else Besides Him and we should not look down at each and every friend. There is no person who was born without any use, without a role, so we have to accept each and every friend as a necessary and we should try use him nevertheless utilize him as much as possible even when he seems to be harmful nevertheless we have to continue and keep going until we advance and he studies and he breaks himself and he advances with us, those exalted souls, those high souls, especially those they undergo such unpleasant states.
34. S. (01:15:17) How did we come to the correct intention when using pride and lowliness in our ten?
R. It's how we exchange your own respect for the respect of the group and respect of the Creator, glory of the Creator it's the extent I annul myself before the environment and my annulment before the environment I come to a state where I enter a state of Ibur, impregnation afterwards I grow in the environment as much as I can adapt myself to them. Not just to annul myself but to adapt myself when I shift from my side to their side and in this way I grow as an embryo within them, in the womb and I advance more and more.
35. S. (01:16:32) They're two very nice quotes you were speaking about, so the first one in Baal HaSulam writes in Letter 21 “If you want to take the sins away from you have to annul yourself instead of the torments, meaning and you will feel yourself that you are the low one from all people in the world, it requires much learning and education to understand this and each time you should test yourself to see if you're not fooling and deceiving yourself it also helps to lower yourself before the friend in practice. So you should watch out not to lower yourself only but the right people and if you want to do it practically you will be able to annul yourself before our society and not before strangers, God forbid. However you must know for certain that you are the worst and the lowest of all people in the world as this is the truth.
R. Yes they should send us this excerpt. This is the one I meant, that you have to in practice lower yourself before the friends. Of course, it should be moderate, you have to count, you have to measure how you do it, you will see how you advance from time to time.
Rabash, You Should Love Your Friend as Yourself: (01:18:30)
37. S. (01:20:06) You say that we need to suffer the friends in any states as much damage as he will do?
R. No no, not in every situation but still it's a friend who is in a group and he does more or less only outside what everyone does, he participates, first of all external participation this is a must without it there is nothing to talk. We check our friends first of all not according to his nice words, pretty words once a month when he comes but it's when we see him in the group's activities and the quality of this participation in the group we should already discuss maybe he understands, maybe he doesn't maybe he has some problems, some burdening of the heart, his ego is too big, his future, his past who knows but the main thing is physical participation, next?
S. What's said now that I hear is my own way so it brings some of the limitations down but supposedly I'm the master of myself. Whatever I can tell the ten, how do I control myself, what are the red lines I can’t go beyond?
R. The ten should first of all respond to your physical participation because there is no arguments about, after your physical participation when you are more or less like everybody else and they should see how much you add to the internal power of the advancements to the group. Meaning in connection among all the friends and in this we're already very different and we cannot measure this, one exerts more one exerts less, according to his character, according to the necessity and the importance of the goal, this is how we should see. Here we are already in a situation where there is room to scrutinize and this is what we scrutinize here today as well for an hour and a half now we were scrutinizing it every day and the question is to what extent you're trying to realize it among yourselves afterwards. You can see that each day we take your discernments and scrutinize them and I hope that you are implementing them in a group and accordingly we will advance if you're only sharing this in the morning lesson, it's certainly not enough, it's not enough in order to advance. Okay?
38. S. (01:23:34) Doesn't our ego move away from spiritual work?
R. It all depends on the goal, if my goal is to reveal the Creator and I want to adhere to him and I can only do this in the ten, realize it only in the ten until all the friends become to me as one and I am within them like an embryo. This is how we advance so what's to talk about, the dependency, the lowliness, the pride, all these things are realized here where else can you realize them only in the ten.