Chapter 10. Sensing Reality through Kabbalah
Everything we know about our world is based on man-made study. Every generation studies our world and conveys its knowledge to the following generation. Through it, each generation comprehends the sort of framework in which he should live, and what his position is in relation to other generations. In each era, mankind uses the world surrounding him.
The same process takes place in spiritualism. Every generation of Kabbalists from Abraham onwards studies and discovers the spiritual worlds. Just as in scientific research, they pass along the knowledge they have attained to future generations.
In this world we have a general sense, called the desire to receive, with five receptors, which are our five senses. When a person undergoes a correction, he attains the sixth sense, known as the spiritual sense. This sense enables him to feel the spiritual reality. It is not in the same category as the other five senses whatsoever.
Scientists, too, use only their five senses. Any instrument – precise, advanced, technical, mechan-ical or otherwise – we regard as “objective.” But these instruments merely expand the limits of our senses so that we may hear, see, smell, taste and touch more intricately. Ultimately, it is man who examines, measures and assesses the results of research, through his five senses. Obviously, he cannot provide an exact, objective answer to what is accomplished by the senses. Kabbalah, the source of all wisdom, enables us to do this.
When starting to study reality, we discover that we cannot study or understand that which is beyond us since it is unknown and unrevealed to us. If we cannot see it or touch or taste it, we may question whether it really exists. Only Kabbalists, those who attain a higher abstract upper light beyond our senses, are able to comprehend our true reality.
Kabbalists tell us that beyond our senses there is only an abstract upper light, called the Creator. Imagine that we are in the middle of the ocean, within a sea of light. We can sense all kinds of feelings that seem to be incorporated into it, as far as our ability to comprehend allows us. We do not hear what is happening elsewhere. What we regard as hearing comes as the response of our eardrums to external stimuli. We do not know what is causing it. We simply know that our eardrum reacts from within us. We assess it internally and accept it as an external event. We do not know what is happening outside of ourselves; we merely comprehend the reaction of our senses to it.
As in the example of hearing, so it is with our other senses: sight, taste, touch and smell. That means that we can never exit our “box.” Whatever we say about what is happening externally is in fact the picture we paint inside us. This restriction can never be overcome.
The study of Kabbalah can assist us in expanding the borders of our natural senses to achieve the sixth sense, through which we can become acquainted with the reality around and within us. This reality is the true reality. Through it, we will be able to experience the reaction of our senses externally. If we direct all of our five senses correctly, we will see the true picture of reality. We need merely to internalize the characteristics of the spiritual world.
It is like a radio that is able to tune into a certain wavelength. The wavelength exists outside of the radio, which receives and responds to it. This example applies to us, too. If we experience at least one tiny spark of the spiritual world, we will begin to feel it within ourselves.
During his development, the Kabbalist acquires more and more spiritual characteristics, thereby connecting to all the levels of the spiritual world, all built on the same principle. When a person studies Kabbalah, he begins to understand, to feel, to assess and work with all realities, both spiritual and material, without differentiating between them. The Kabbalist reaches the spiritual world while encased in his body in this world. He feels the two worlds without any border separating them.
Only when a person experiences this true reality can he see the reasons for what is happening to him here. He understands the consequences of his actions. He then begins to be practical for the first time, living, feeling everything and knowing what he should do with himself and his life.
Prior to this recognition he does not have the ability to know why he was born, who he is and the consequences of his actions. Everything is enclosed within the borders of the material world, and the way he enters it is also the way he leaves it.
In the meantime, we are all at the level called “This World.” Our senses are equally limited; therefore, we are capable only of seeing the same picture. Baal HaSulam writes, “All upper and lower worlds are included in man.” This is the key sentence for anyone interested in the wisdom of Kabbalah and living the reality around him. The reality around us includes upper worlds as well as this world; together, they are part of man.
For the time being, we understand this world through material, physical elements. However, we add several elements when we study, through which we discover additional elements. It allows us to see things we cannot see today.
At first our level is very low, as we are located diametrically opposite the level of the Creator. But then we start to rise from this level by correcting our desire. We then discover another reality surrounding us, although no change actually occurs. We change within ourselves, and following the change, become aware of other elements surrounding us. Later, these elements disappear and we feel everything is due solely to the Creator, the Almighty. The elements we begin to gradually discover are called worlds.
We should not try to imagine spiritual reality, but should sense it. Imagining it merely distances us from its reach. Kabbalists reach the upper worlds through their senses, just as we reach out to the material world. The worlds stand between us and the Creator, hiding Him from us. As Baal HaSulam writes, it is as if the worlds filter the light for us. We can then see reality surrounding us in a different way. In fact, we will discover that there is nothing between us and the Creator.
All these disturbances, these worlds between us, hide Him from us. They are masks placed on our senses. We do not see Him in his true form; we see only fractured elements. In Hebrew, the origin of the word Olam (world) is “ alama” (concealing). Part of the light is transmitted, and part is hidden. The higher the world, the less hidden the Creator is.
Those in this world paint different pictures of reality differently. Logic dictates that reality should be uniform to everyone. Nevertheless, one hears one thing, another hears something else, one sees one thing, and another sees it differently.
Baal HaSulam illustrates this by using electricity as an example: We have in our homes an electric socket that contains abstract energy which cools, heats, creates a vacuum or pressure depending on the appliance using it, and on the ability of the appliance to utilize the electricity. Yet the energy has no form of its own, and remains abstract. The appliance reveals the potential found in the electricity.
We can say the same about the upper light, the Creator that has no form. Each person feels the Creator according to the level of his correction. At the beginning of his studies, a person can see only that his reality exists, and is unable to sense any higher force.
He gradually discovers, through using his senses, the true, expanded reality. At a more advanced stage, if he corrects all his senses according to the light around him, there will be no separation between himself and the light, between man and the Creator. It will be as if there is no difference between their characteristics. The person then achieves godliness in the real sense. Godliness is the highest level of spirituality.
How can a beginner master this science when he cannot even properly understand his teacher? The answer is very simple. It is only possible when we spiritually lift ourselves up above this world.
Only if we rid ourselves of all of the traces of material egoism and accept attaining spiritual values as our true goal. Only the longing and the passion for spirituality in our world – that is the key to the higher world.