Our spiritual work does not consist of simply acquiring knowledge, as in this world, in order to gather intelligence and achieve success with it. We do not ascend through this; we only develop our tools of perception, and that is where it ends. Especially now, in our time, when we are reaching the result of all our previous development. The still, vegetative, and animate levels within a person have completed their development, and there is no longer a possibility of being fulfilled egoistically. This is the main characteristic of the current crisis.
Now we must develop our desires ourselves—no longer only for reception, but also for bestowal. That is, the lower must become a giver like the upper, become similar to the upper, become human (Adam—from the word “Adameh,” which means “similar” to the upper). Now the human level is beginning to develop within us.
Equivalence of form to the upper means bestowal, which is the same quality as His. But how can the lower one do this if he does not know how? He has no possibility whatsoever because the upper revealed itself only as a source of wisdom, knowledge, intellect, and sensations that fulfilled the lower. But it did not develop the desires of the lower in the new quality of bestowal instead of or alongside reception.
In order to make this possible, the upper hides Himself and gives the lower one the feeling of concealment. This is exactly what we are beginning to feel in our world now, and this feeling will continue to intensify. A person who starts studying Kabbalah after some time begins to feel a bit of darkness and discomfort. It no longer draws him in as before, as if the source has closed off and everything became insipid.
At the same time, a feeling of helplessness arises, a lack of purpose, and a person loses the will to live and falls into despondency, and drags himself through life like a lifeless body. But this does not come to crush a person, but to give one the opportunity to add on their own what the upper has hidden.
The upper concealed a small part of His bestowal. This is called the concealment of the AHP of the upper. And that is why the lower one no longer feels that he receives any light from the upper. Before, he sensed some radiance from the upper, and now it is gone. As a result, a void is formed in the GE of the lower one, a lack of sensation, understanding, connection, purpose, mood, and confusion. He understands nothing, hears nothing, and moves with difficulty.
All this is done so that the lower one will fill in what he no longer receives from the upper. The upper one restricted His vessels, and the lower one must, so to speak, enter this space that has opened in the upper. The upper one has deliberately made room within Himself for him and says: “Come to Me!”
But to come to the upper one means to rise to the degree where you become a giver and not a receiver, to work in a form opposite to what you did before, to become like the Creator where it no longer matters what you feel in your egoistic desires, or how much knowledge, impressions, understanding, or emotions you receive.
Bestowal means complete giving solely for the sake of the other. And thank God, there is no shortage of others, you can always bestow to them. The whole world, the group, the study are all before you.
But right now, you cannot bestow because the upper one has taken His light away from you. So in that place add your own light of bestowal, the light of faith. You do not know how? Then ask the upper to give you this sensation of bestowal, the ability to bestow, to help you rise above your previous feelings and intellect, above the sensation that you are receiving, understanding, and advancing toward a goal in life.
Let go of all that and rise above it! None of it exists—it was all just an imagined world. Rise from it into a new state, which is beyond all egoistic calculations.
This is the state of our choice. And if a person understands and feels this—and not only one person, but the group—then we reach a true desire.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/27/2012, Writings of Rabash Article 195
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Roots And Branches—Causes And Consequences
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