and is completely subordinate to its influence. According to Ashlag, one's only choice is the choice of the environment that will project the values one wants to adopt. Ashlag spent many years formulating the fundamentals of building a co-operative society that strives to achieve spirituality, the way kabbalists perceived it throughout the generations: achieving love of God by means of first attaining love of man. For this reason, the bulk of Ashlag's essays are dedicated to explication and simplification of the principles of the spiritual work of an individual within such a society. The actual spiritual work is revealed through study and a process of internal transformation. Therefore the teaching cannot be understood simply intellectually and is dependent on the inner processes the disciple experiences. Correct approach to study Ashlag asserted that two elements are imperative to one's spiritual path. First, one must find an environment that will promote one as safely and as quickly as possible toward "equivalence of form" with one's Maker. Next, one must know how to approach the study of Kabbalah correctly, so that no time is lost. Once we've explained the first element in the previous item, let us now explain the second: Kabbalists throughout the generations believed that during the study, a Light shines on a person's soul, a "Surrounding Light." To receive that Light within the soul, one need only want that Light to permeate one's soul. In other words, one needs to want to experience the states that the kabbalist who wrote the book is describing. However, this is a complex process, requiring time and considerable effort on the part of the student, since one must reach a state of "prayer," i.e. to formulate a complete desire to discover the Higher Reality. The emphasis in his teachings is not on understanding the material, but on the individual's desire. From the moment a person acquires a complete measure of desire to reach spirituality, the spiritual world opens and one discovers the Upper Worlds described by the author. In Shamati, essay 209, he mentions three conditions to reach "genuine" prayer, a complete desire for spirituality: Selected quotes Successors After his demise, several of his disciples continued to study according to his method: Avraham Mordecai Gottlieb, Dzerke Rebbe; Aharon Brizel, who currently teaches a Hasidic version of this method in New York; as well as Feivel Okowita, who heads the Kabbalah Institute of America. Michael