The Gift

The Essence and Driving Force of Existence

The fundamental matter and driving force of existence is desire — the desire for egocentric and individualistic existence, accompanied by an innate tendency to justify ourselves. This desire traps us within a subjective, personalized perception of reality, making us view everything through the lens of self-interest.

However, the true gift we seek is an overwhelming, all-encompassing, and all-consuming desire for love and bestowal. This new desire must match the “deficiency” of the Creator — a longing to give, to love, and to nurture without any self-interest.

The Shift from Self to Others

From within our inherently self-serving and self-justifying existence, we must develop a need and desire to live solely for the sake of others, while completely forgetting about ourselves. This new desire should surpass all other desires and deficiencies, becoming the singular force that fuels our life.

This overwhelming yearning for bestowal is the very thing we must request from the Creator. Only when we receive it will we begin to experience existence through selfless and unconditional love and service toward others. Without it, life will feel empty, even lifeless.

When we finally attain this new desire — to exist outside of ourselves solely for the sake of others — we will recognize, for the first time, the nature of our original existence: that by our inherent nature, we live only within and for ourselves. Only then will we begin to understand that true human existence is defined by existing outside of oneself, for the sake of others. Through this transformation, we will start to connect with and partner with the Creator.

In contrast, our original, egocentric, self-serving, and self-justifying existence will come to feel lifeless — dead in comparison to the newfound vitality of bestowal. Yet, this dead state remains essential, as only through its contrast can we fully appreciate and scrutinize the opposite state: the state where we have received an unceasing, irrepressible, and insatiable desire to exist solely for the sake of others, completely forgetting our own subjective existence.

Why This Desire is a Gift

This new desire — an absolute and unconditional love and bestowal toward others — is a gift because it is something we could never develop or attain on our own. It is beyond what we can imagine or even deserve. It is a gift that makes us similar to the Creator, enabling us to know Him and become His partners in the act of bestowal.

Though we must make constant and intense efforts to merit this gift, what we ultimately receive is incomparably greater than anything we could ever achieve through our own efforts. Still, from our side, we are expected to do everything within our capacity — until we reach the point where we surrender and request the Creator’s completion.

The Role of Our Efforts

Our main effort lies in developing the correct request — the desire to have the right desire. We cannot create this new nature from within ourselves, as it is entirely opposite to our inherent self-interest. The most we can do is generate a deep longing for the ability to love and bestow. Even this longing signals a form of self-subjugation and willingness to step into a completely different mode of existence — one we do not yet understand or feel.

When we finally receive this “supernatural” desire — to exist solely through selfless and unconditional love and service toward others — we will need nothing else. From that moment on, this new desire, which is essentially the Creator lending us His own deficiency, will become the driving force of our existence. It will function above and against our original nature, replacing our self-centered tendencies with a higher, all-consuming aspiration.

The Practice of Acting as If

Even before we receive this new desire, we must act as if we already have it. We must behave as though we genuinely want to love and bestow upon others at the expense of our instinctive self-love. This practice must take place within a uniquely structured, closed, mutually committed group where every individual is devoted to the same goal. A special method, specifically designed for this purpose, must be followed rigorously.

Only through persistent, methodical efforts in such an environment will we develop the necessary need and request to ask the Creator for the true, overwhelming, and all-consuming desire to act and exist like Him. This desire is the key to attaining and justifying the Creator through similarity with Him.

Mutual Connection as the Key to Revelation

The measure of mutual connection and mutual complementing between us is what we call “the Creator.” We cannot reveal the Creator directly, but we can attain Him by acquiring and manifesting His qualities within our relationships. The more we develop qualities similar to His, the more we will sense and recognize Him through our interactions.

For this to happen, we must abandon our own desires and adopt the desires of our friends. The key to this transformation lies in deep, increasingly sensitive, and benevolent integration with each other. However, our egos will fight this process at every step, resisting any attempt at unity and mutual bestowal.

We must learn to overcome this resistance by repeatedly entering and exiting each other’s desires and viewpoints, refining ourselves through constant friction — just like diamonds are polished through grinding against one another. Through this process, we will learn to differentiate between our original self-serving desires and the newly acquired longing to live for the sake of others.

The clearer this contrast becomes, the more intensely we will yearn for the new, selfless desire to govern and drive us. We will continuously work to cleanse ourselves from the ever-revealed layers of selfish and egoistic inclinations so that we can act in our mutual integration purely for the sake of others.

The Role of the Ego and the Creator’s Assistance

True love and bestowal can only be established against and in contrast to the ego that resists it. The ego must serve as the opposing force that makes the truth of bestowal tangible. However, we cannot rise above our ego alone. We can only act and exist in bestowal if the Creator constantly holds us above and against our inherent nature.

Yet, the Creator will only assist us when we desire and need nothing else but to become like Him in our existence and actions. This overwhelming, all-consuming, and insatiable desire to become like Him — at any cost — is the true gift we seek from Him.