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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Question: Is mutual guarantee a correction? I cannot correct myself, so apparently it isn’t my job to come to mutual guarantee?

Answer: Mutual guarantee is achieved through the work of each and everyone together. We must come to an agreement that mutual guarantee is necessary, that without it we cannot unite, that it is a condition for uniting all desires and all souls.

If we decide we want this, then due to us being below our corrected state, we attract the surrounding light through our desire to be in it. We want to be in this state, even though we do not know or really understand what it is, but it is enough that we simply want it.

Then the force descends on us from above in the form of the surrounding light, and begins to correct us so that we, by agreeing to be guarantors for each other, come to fulfill this condition and reveal our mutual inclusion in souls.

Strictly speaking, we reveal the only existing state, and all other states in which we are currently in, as it seems to us, are just different levels of unconsciousness.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/4/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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It is impossible to rise alone. After all, to rise higher means to connect even more with everyone, up to the very top level where we all merge without any differences between us. Therefore, the more support I get from the others and I myself support them, the larger the field we get for work.

After all, who is this upper? It is our connection. If we really unite now, we will be able to implement this action in practice and not just fantasize about the upper and our feelings. It is not for no reason that we live in our world of physical actions; it is so that we are able to experience these actions in it instead of the spiritual world and be able to perform them here, like children playing a game.

Due to this, we will connect more and more and envision that by this action we become like the upper one, because He bestows to everyone. The closer we connect, the closer we get to the AHP of the upper and attach ourselves there to the single source that affects everyone.

If we do this and strengthen each other, we will create our common request, a societal prayer with which we can demand the power of mutual bestowal from the upper.

After all, we feel that we are not able to connect. It is even harder for us than for someone who is alone. Alone, someone does not feel the lack of desire to bestow so strongly. And when we are actively working in a group, we feel that according to our verification, we have no way to connect. No matter how much we talk about it, sing together, dance, and jump, nothing works.

Our GE becomes similar to AHP of the upper; that is, we rise above our worries, problems, concerns, private calculations, and all our thoughts are above, like the AHP of the upper one. This is how we approach and cling to Him. Now we already have a partial spiritual vessel, our GE, with which we can cling to the upper one.

Of course, this is not yet a complete vessel but only a partial one. But after a certain number of actions, which are called “forty years of wandering in the desert,” the stage of Bina (Chafetz Hesed), bestowal for the sake of bestowal, the level of faith, we receive the ability in some part of our desire to connect with the upper, to rise to the same level with Him.

Therefore, if we feel darkness, and this is not an individual, unconscious experience, but a common feeling of the impossibility of our connection, if this is what we perceive as darkness, then this common feeling can be the beginning of a genuine prayer.

Then it is worth going to the desert to enhance this feeling and receive the glow of the AHP of the upper, which will help us with our GE, our desires to bestow, to attach to Him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/27/2012, Writings of Rabash Article 195

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Friends must strive for connection between them and from that point turn to the Creator and demand adhesion (Dvekut). In this case, the teacher is the messenger of the Creator leading you to Him.

Adhesion with the teacher is a solid foundation (Yesod) upon which a spiritual building can be erected. Yesod is the upper quality in relation to Malchut. Therefore, when a person stands on one hand in Yesod, and on the other in Malchut, a connection forms between one’s current state and the future one.

The foundation (Yesod) is built when a person attributes it to a higher degree and is willing to exert efforts to detach from one’s present state and rise upward to a more elevated state. A person must ask the Creator for the ability to ascend higher and higher.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/5/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Things that Come from the Heart”

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Question: What kind of preparation is needed so that a person, together with everyone else, demands correction? Is it Arvut (mutual guarantee)?

Answer: What kind of preparation is needed for a person to want to fulfill a law? The same as with anything in life!

Let’s say I do not want to follow the law that says you should cross the street only at a crosswalk like everyone else does. I just do not want to!

The first time, someone yells at me, and I shrug it off. The second time, I get a ticket. Now I start watching when it is allowed to cross and when it is not. But if no one is around, I still cross like before. The third time, God forbid, I get hit by a car, and then I finally…

That is when I start to get a sense that maybe I should follow the law. This is called: “The Creator places a person’s hand upon a good fate and says: take it.” And the person must now strengthen himself in this because we cannot just desire spirituality on our own. But when that thought arises in us, we begin to consider: “Maybe it is worth fulfilling this law. I do not want to, but still, it might be worth it.”

This is where a person’s work begins.

We start looking for support, guidance, and the necessity of keeping this law despite our laziness, our evil inclination, our refusal to comply, and eventually we come to truly want it.

Now, the possibility of choice appears within a person. One becomes split in two ever since one was given the point in the heart. A person’s heart is entirely egoistic. It wants nothing but to fill itself and destroy anything that stands in the way of its desires. But in contrast to this, one was given a point in the heart.

We do not even know what this is or where it came from, but suddenly we begin to hear something that is opposite to our nature. This is called “a part of the Creator from above.” We can see this in people who are willing to get up at three in the morning to listen to a lesson. They begin to feel this inner split.

Now the person faces a choice: seek out advice and with its help gain the strength to resist one’s nature, which, truthfully, is not even one’s own. The Creator created the evil, meaning, the desire to receive and placed it in him. And apart from this desire, there is only the light, which is the Creator.

He created this evil in me, and now I must find some kind of support in order to rid myself of it or correct it to ensure that it no longer rules over me so that I might truly desire to fulfill the law of Arvut.

To strengthen oneself in this choice means that I am searching for a way to be free from evil, not that I am capable of doing it on my own. We cannot reach the state by ourselves of connecting our hearts, uniting into one Kli, and becoming worthy of the presence of the light in it. We must seek advice and truly want it, that is, to come to what is called a state of necessity.

Our readiness is called: “We shall do, and we shall hear.” I do not know what awaits me, I understand nothing about the state ahead of me because I am rising from a lower degree to a higher one. By definition, I do not understand that higher degree.

If I were already wise enough to grasp and feel it, I would already be on it! But if I am only about to leap to that degree, I do not yet know it. All I have is a sense of its necessity. This is called “We shall do, and we shall hear.” “We are ready. Just do something already!”
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/6/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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How can one constantly maintain a state of unity with the teacher, the friends, and the Creator? Try to find that inner point within yourself that is awakening right now and illuminating the path that is leading you to the Creator; grasp it and never let it go.

It is from these points of unity that the path is built. It is a path on which we grow stronger and draw ever closer to the Creator. Each person connects to Him in a unique way, in a form that exists only between that individual and the Creator. One must constantly ask for this unity.

The next point of connection along the path depends on how ready my heart is for it, that is, how corrected it is through my attitude toward all the previous points I have already passed.

My yearning for the Creator is the force that brings me back to unity after every fall. And if I am not in unity, then I must remain in constant prayer.

The heart’s readiness to unite with the upper one requires its expansion, and the heart expands through my desire to unite with the friends in the group or the ten.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/5/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Things that Come from the Heart”

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The force that can pull a person out of their egoistic prison arises from the difference in potential between their personal state and the collective attitude of the group, the environment. The force of the group’s desire, which is stronger than the force of a person’s egoism, passes the yearning to break free to them, as if throwing them a rope and pulling them out.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/5/2025, Writings Baal HaSulam “Things that Come from the Heart”

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Question: How can we learn to correctly absorb our friends’ yearning for spirituality?

Answer: Try to unite with them so that their questions become your own and their desires and aspirations become yours. It is like a mother who absorbs her child’s desires until they become the central focus of her life, she lives for him.

Question: In principle, this kind of absorption happens even on a corporeal level when we get together for our meetings. When someone shares something with others, it is as if he is answering himself. Does it work on the level of thought where a person processes his ideas through someone else?

Answer: Of course, absolutely. That happens when a person starts to explain things to others or even just writes them down for himself without integrating with someone else.

Question: Is this why you claim that we need to internalize all the articles of your teacher Rabash?

Answer: That is something completely different. When you internalize the articles of Rabash, you connect with the author, that is, with a level that is far above your own.

Question: What happens when people read and discuss these articles together?

Answer: By studying the articles together, people also invest in each other. This creates a tremendous opportunity, a broad shared vessel in which they can grasp what Rabash was actually saying. After all, their small individual minds combine and are amplified many times over.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Rabash’s articles” 8/17/10

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Comment: When there are completely different kinds of people in a group, some may repeat slogans, which is unacceptable to others.

My Response: We must forgive people. What can you do? We all started our lives by soiling diapers. It is the same here. People come; what do they understand, what do they know? Everyone is puffing up, wanting to express something of their own, and put themselves in a certain position. These are natural impulses of a small person. I too had them, and so did each of us.

I remember so well how totally hollow I used to be, all the bragging: why, how, for what? After all, I was not young anymore, over thirty, and not stupid, I was a scientist. And still. I remember how the egoism rocked me, I went through stages of self-aggrandizement, bragging, domineering, jealousy, whatever. Every person goes through all this.

Comment: I think it is great to be aware of it, not to stay in this, but to go through everything.

My Response: You are talking about realizing this, being able to correct it, and supposedly staying above it. That is, how good it is to realize that you are now putting pressure on egoism, how good you are, how strong you are, etc…! But this is an even higher form of egoism.

Question: What is above that?

Answer: There is more above it.

Comment: But still it is better than living in it.

My Response: Yes, undoubtedly, all this is much better, more purposeful, closer to the Creator, despite all the tricks egoism plays on us. Of course, this is better, because a person sees the work of the Creator on oneself. What did the Creator create? What evil, with what sophistication in me, such qualities!

Comment: The worst thing is when you want to change something and cannot do anything.

My Response: This is not terrible; it is wonderful when you are unable to do anything and feel completely empty, discouraged, powerless, and misunderstood—just out of it.

This is when you begin to think the Creator did this on purpose so you would turn to Him. But you do not have this need until you reach this point of despair. Only then will it arise in you: you need to turn everything only to Him; this is the only option, the only salvation.

Then you turn to Him. If your appeal comes from a totally disillusioned, desolate state, without a future, without anything, then the Creator helps you because you already have a complete request, a ripened desire.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. When There is no Desire” 8/12/10

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Question: Is it good or bad when a person pushes himself to study without desire?

Answer: It is good. It means the goal is higher than his own small, egoistic desire. That is good; he is making an effort. And if he studies without putting in effort, then where is his personal exertion? Even worse is when he does it with desire.

The best state is when there is no desire at all and the person is as if dead begs the group to give him some opportunity, some awareness of the importance of the goal. Then, by nullifying himself before his friends, he is ready to pay them, to do anything, just so they would tell him how important the goal is, and this would inspire him to show up to the next morning lesson. That is the best.

Question: So when a student comes to you and says, “What do I do? I cannot do anything. How do I go on?”—is the best state?

Answer: Yes. Then I tell him: “Congratulations! You already have some awareness of your nature. You understand that you do not want anything, that you are just an animal and all you need is a bit of animal fulfillment and nothing more.”

Question: So is being in a lesson with desire just an initial stage when a person has not achieved anything yet?

Answer: What does that give? Nothing yet. The most important thing is the connection with the group, with friends, where they can pass on additional desires to him, and then he can rise higher.

Question: And when a person crosses the Machsom, meaning rises to the first spiritual level, does his lack of desire feel different there?

Answer: When he crosses the Machsom, then there are completely different forces and calculations that influence him.

Question: So it means that all the way to the final correction there is always a kind of struggle against one’s nature?

Answer: Yes, of course. How else can you progress if not by revealing ever more egoism within yourself and rising above it by correcting it?
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. When There Is No Desire” 8/12/10

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