Virtual Annulment

Student Question: How can one annul himself through the internet?

Dr. Michael Laitman: The physical distance is not related to annulment. If one listens to his teacher's words with regards to dissemination, the group, the study, and makes efforts to understand what the teacher thinks and performs it in complete devotion, it is called that he annuls himself before his teacher's opinion. It does not matter where he is. He does not receive it from his teacher's body anyway, but from this channel that he himself arranges from below upward.

Therefore, there may be many people I don't know physically, but if they accept my words and perform them faithfully, they reach this level of annulment. After all, we're talking about the intermediate level between the Creator and the teacher. In other words, it is the closest level to you, arranging for you the ascent to the next higher level. And after you ascend to an Upper Level, your teacher will be on a higher level too, and so will the Creator. "The teacher" is not a person; he is a level, a level  that is higher than you.

Annulment Is A Very Calculated Action

Annulment is wanting to rise upward from below, from the point of this world back to Ein Sof. What does it mean "to annul"? Accepting the Upper Nature instead of ours, giving importance to the Upper Nature above ours. And this is something I also do with my intellect. In order to do this I must be very smart, and utilize many factors - the group, dissemination, lessons, the teacher, and the Sages' advice.

I must brew these things very strongly within me, in order to convince myself to annul myself towards the Upper AHP, towards its properties of bestowal, which appear to me as darkness, and despite that I want to belong to Him, to value Him as greater than me, I don't want to cancel my mind just like that, otherwise I am just a beast. Annulment is a very calculated operation. 

Being Successful In The Hissaron

It is impossible for one to feel empty and that it is pleasant. Subconsciously, one will always want to escape this feeling. We usually run away from it even before we begin to actually feel it. This is how our body's protective force works. When I prepare for myself in advance a group that influences all of its members about the greatness of Hissaron (deficit) for the Creator, for bestowal, for love of others - that I must be in a great Hissaron for it, in great suffering that is accompanied by the question "Why don't I have it?"; when I prepare these, and if I receive support from the group that is aimed at this only, then I begin to feel despicable and bad because I do not have this Hissaron.

I begin to hear how they say: How good it is to yearn for love of others, to want it and to search precisely for this Hissaron. From the whole spectrum of successes and lack of successes that I can look at it, they give me one thin line only. They say: If you are lacking it, then you are the most successful-the most successful in the Hissaron. And then, from my nature that wants to be successful in that "poverty," in ignorance, in lack of success, in revelation of the evil, I begin to want to discover the evil inclination toward the group, toward the Creator, and to delve into this thin line toward the Goal of Creation - which I do not have. Not toward the group, not toward adhesion to the Creator.

They say: The Hissaron for it is everything. We must reach a state where we suffer from not having it, and everyone who is in this suffering is more important, greater, more successful; precisely he is the most exalted in our group.

And then that protective force which exists in my body, my ego, will actually push me to want to be in it. And then instinctively, the rest of the poverty forms in money, honor etc. will be extinguished, and I will begin to want only the Hissaron for spirituality. This is how I expand my point in the heart. Otherwise, the will to receive will stop it. Why would I want to feel more Hissaron? I will always look for less suffering, meaning, to not feel greater emptiness. If we wish to advance, we must work with our body, with our inclinations, in a sophisticated manner.

The Relations Between A Student And His Teacher

It is told that Moshe had some kind of academy or college in Israel's encampment where he taught the heads of the nation. It is also told that Yehoshua - thanks to whom the nation entered the "in order to bestow" level, to the land of Israel - did not study among those sages but helped Moshe disseminate his wisdom. How? He arranged the benches in the house of study and more. In other words, he worked without intellect but in adhesion, in service. This is a well known matter in spirituality. That is because if one annuls himself before the AHP de Elyon (Upper AHP- Awzen, Hotem, Peh) - which is also called his teacher's body - and attaches himself to it, then the Elyon raises him to His level and he attains the Elyon's GE (Galgalta ve Eynaim)- the Elyon's intellect and emotion, His level. This is how we advance in spirituality.

From that also stem the relations that should be between a student and his teacher, as Baal HaSulam explains in "Speech in Celebration for the Conclusion of the Zohar." The student's spiritual advancement depends on the fulfillment of his teacher's demands in corporeality - those requirements mainly touch upon dissemination matters, as it was with Yehoshua. That is because spiritual advancement is not attained through study, but by annulling myself before the Upper Level, and then that level raises you spiritually.