Kabbalah for Beginners

KABBALAH FOR BEGGINERS

Copyright © 2007 by MICHAEL LAITMAN

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Published by Laitman Kabbalah Publishers

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Laitman, Michael.

Kabbalah for beginners / Michael Laitman. — 4th ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-9781590-9-2

1. Cabala. I. Title.

BM525.L252 2007

296.1’6—dc22 2007021769

Research: Eli Vinokur, Oren Levi

Photos: Moshe Admoni

Layout: Richard Aquan

Graphics: Baruch Khovov

Copy Editor: Claire Gerus

Printing and Post Production: Uri Laitman

Executive Editor: Chaim Ratz

FOURTH EDITION: OCTOBER 2007

First printing

Scientists have been studying the laws of Nature, our behavior, and our place in the world for thousands of years. Yet, these days, scientists are realizing that the more they advance in their research, the more confusing they find the world to be.

While science has undoubtedly brought enormous progress to our lives, there are boundaries beyond which it cannot penetrate. For instance, scientific tools cannot measure the human soul, or the basic motivation for our actions. If it could, we would be able to “program” people to behave as we wish. But because we cannot perceive our most essential motivations, we humans, the apex of Creation, are still unaware of why we come into this world!

Man has always been searching for the answers to life’s most basic questions: Who am I? What is the purpose of my life? Why does the world exist? Do we continue to exist after our physical being has ended?

In the absence of sufficient answers, some find temporary refuge in Eastern teachings, meditations, or techniques that minimize personal expectations and reduce the suffering caused by disillusionment.

However, experience teaches us that we can never satisfy all our desires; therefore, we will always experience some degree of discontentment. Yet, at the deepest level of our being, the true basis for suffering arises from our inability to answer life’s most fundamental question: “Why am I here?”

Kabbalah answers this very question, and in doing so, guides us toward complete and lasting satisfaction. It teaches us how to access the essential feeling of the spiritual realm—the sixth sense—and thus improve our lives in this world. With it, we can perceive the Upper World—the Creator—and assume control over our lives.

The Bible, The Book of Zohar, The Tree of Life, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, and other authentic Kabbalistic sources were given to us to promote us in the spiritual realms. With their help, we can obtain spiritual knowledge. They explain how we can turn our lives in this world into a path to spiritual ascent.

Kabbalah for Beginners has been written to help you take your first steps towards understanding the roots of human behavior and the laws of Nature. The contents present the essential principles of the wisdom of Kabbalah and describe how these principles work. This book is intended for those searching for a reliable method of studying our world. It is written for those seeking to understand the reasons for suffering and pleasure, who strive to take charge over their lives and make them the exciting and joyous journeys they can be.

The Rambam (Maimonides), a great 12th century Kabbalist, wrote that thousands of years ago, when humanity was deep in idol worship, one man couldn’t go with the flow. His name was Abraham, and today we know him as “Abraham the Patriarch.” Abraham pondered and searched until he found the truth: that the world had only one leader and guide.

When he discovered this, he realized he had uncovered life’s eternal truth, and ran to share it with the world. To clarify his message, he developed a method that helped him explain his perceptions more clearly. Since then, the world has had a method that reveals this truth. Today this method is as valid as it was then, and we call it “the wisdom of Kabbalah.”

In Chapter One of his book, The Mighty Hand, Maimonides describes how there was a time when people knew that there was only one force governing the world. He explained that after some time, due to a prolonged spiritual decline, they all forgot it. Instead, people believed that there were many forces in the world, each with its own responsibilities. Some forces were responsible for food provision, some were meant to help us marry more successfully, and some were in charge of keeping us wealthy and healthy.

But one man, whom we now know as Abraham, noticed that all these forces obeyed the same rules of birth and death, budding and withering. To discover what those rules were, he began to study Nature. Abraham's research taught him that there was really only one force, and everything else was only a partial manifestation of it. This was Stage One of the spiritual evolution of humanity.

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Perhaps one of the best known Native American traditions is the Council Circle. Here, the members sit in a circle, each member expressing a different aspect of the same issue. Similarly, Abraham didn’t want to see things only from his perspective. He wanted to see through everyone’s eyes, and thus discover the one force that made different people see different things.

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Once Abraham discovered this truth, he began to spread the word. Challenged by having to explain a concept that contradicted everything his contemporaries believed, Abraham was forced to develop a teaching method that would help him reveal this concept to them. This was the prototype of the teaching method we now call “Kabbalah” (from the Hebrew word, Lekabel, to receive). Today, Kabbalah teaches us how to discover the force that guides us, and in doing so, receive infinite joy and pleasure.

We will talk about Abraham’s discovery in greater detail later in the book, but we should mention here that the essence of his discovery is that the universe is “obeying” a force of love and giving. This force is what Abraham and all the prophets in the Bible call “The Creator.” When Biblical figures speak of the Creator, or the Lord, or God, they speak not of a being, but of a force of love and giving, and how they perceive it. If we keep this in mind, we will find the method of Kabbalah very clear and easy to understand.

Abraham's discovery was no coincidence. It arrived just in time to counter an outbreak of egoism and selfishness that threatened to destroy both the love and unity among people, and between humankind and the Creator.

This unity was the natural way of life for humanity prior to the time of the Tower of Babel. This is what the Bible means by, “And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech” (Genesis 11:1). Everyone knew about the Creator, the force of love and giving, and all were united with it. People experienced it as part of their lives, and they didn’t need to “work” on their unity, as is done today, because no egoism was setting them apart. This is why the Bible writes that they were of “one language” and “one speech.”

But as soon as people’s egoism began to develop, they wanted to use their unity for their own benefit. This prompted the Creator’s concern. Put differently, the force of love had to act to counter humankind’s egoism-caused separation. In the words of Genesis, “The Lord said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. …and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them’” (Genesis 11:6).

To save humanity from its own egoism, the Creator, the single force discovered by Abraham, could do one of two things: disperse humanity and thus prevent a catastrophic clash of self-interests, or teach people how to overcome their egoism.

The latter option offered an obvious benefit: if people remained united despite their egoism, they would not only retain their way of life, they would actually unite even more closely with the Creator. In other words, the efforts to bond, despite their growing egoism, would force people to become much more aligned and united with both the Creator and each other.

Here’s an illustration of this principle: Imagine you are rich and want a shiny new Jaguar. This is no big deal; you just walk into the nearest dealership and come out driving the car of your dreams. How long do you think your pleasure would last? A week? Probably even less. And how much would you really care about your new Jag, which demanded nothing more than a visit to the dealership to get it?

But if you were not well off and had to work two shifts for two whole years to get that Jaguar, you would undoubtedly love and appreciate your car very much. The effort you put into “attaching” yourself to it would make that car much more important to you.

This is the benefit of bonding with the Creator, despite growing egoism. Egoism serves an important purpose: it is there to give you something to strive to overcome, a “practice field” where you can make efforts that will make you appreciate the force of love—the Creator.

So the Creator revealed Himself to Abraham to show him how humanity could “practice” and “work” at loving the Creator, and thus become closer to Him. This is also why Abraham was such an enthusiastic disseminator of his method. He knew that time was of the essence: either he taught his people how to unite through bonding with the Creator—the force of love—or their growing egoism would alienate them from one another and they would disperse or kill each other off.

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(Abraham thought): “‘How is it possible that this wheel will always steer without a driver? And who is driving it? After all, it cannot drive itself!’ And he had no teacher, and no one to let him know. Instead, he was… surrounded by idolaters, fools. And his father and his mother, and all the people were idolaters. And he, too, was idol worshipping with them. And his heart roamed and understood, until he attained the path of truth.”

–Maimonides, Yad HaHazakah (The Mighty Hand), Idolatry Rules.

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As the Bible and other ancient Hebrew texts teach us, the Babylonians rejected and scorned Abraham's offer. Abraham confronted their king, Nimrod, and proved that his method could work. But instead of adopting it, Nimrod attempted to assassinate Abraham. Now, with his life at stake, Abraham fled from Babylon and began to teach his method while roaming “from town to town and from kingdom to kingdom, until he arrived in the Land of Israel” (Maimonides, The Mighty Hand, Idolatry Rules, Chapter 1).

Despite hardships and challenges, Abraham’s teachings gained some support, and his followers helped him share his knowledge with others, filling the ranks with “new recruits.” In time, the lone fighter for truth had multiplied, creating a nation whose name, “the nation of Israel,” symbolizes the one thing they had in common—their desire for the Creator. The word “Israel” is really a combination of two Hebrew words: Yashar (straight) and El (God). The people of Israel are those who have one desire in their hearts: to be like the Creator, united by altruism and love.

The collapse of the Tower of Babel was not, however, the end of the story, but only the beginning. The force of love, which Abraham had discovered, wanted to tighten its bond with humanity. But since the Creator is a force of love, and loves us as much as anyone can love another, the only tightening of the bond can come from us. Hence, this force, the Creator, keeps increasing our egoism, so we may rise above it by strengthening our ties with Him.

For those who want to remain egoists, increased egoism means greater alienation. As a result, the people who were once united split into different nations and invented new technologies with which they could create new weapons. They used these weapons to protect what they thought was their freedom, but which was actually their increased self-centeredness and alienation from the Creator and from one another.

Without noticing it, they became increasingly subjugated to their egoism while mistakenly thinking they were defending themselves from those who wanted to harm them. Their egoism made them forget that when they were united, they hadn’t needed weapons, as they had no egoism to make them feel their freedom was threatened.

But those who wanted to remain united, and even deepen their bond of love, treated their increased egoism as an opportunity for growth. To them, it was a welcome challenge, rather than a problem or crisis.

But to cope with their heightened egoism they needed to upgrade Abraham's method. This was Moses’ cue. As with the Babylonians and their king, Nimrod, overcoming the new level of egoism—this time represented by the Egyptians and their king, Pharaoh—meant escaping it.

Pharaoh wasn’t simply an evil king. He actually brought Israel (those who want the Creator) closer to the Creator. In Kabbalah, Pharaoh is the epitome of egoism, and the only way to escape him is to unite (with each other and with the Creator). As we’ve seen before, unity makes you closer (more similar) to the Creator. To defeat Pharaoh, Moses returned to Egypt after his escape, united the people around the same idea that Abraham promoted many years previously, and once again helped his people escape.

But this time, Israel defeated a much more powerful ego. Pharaoh was not like Nimrod, King of Babel; he could not be defeated by one determined man. Defeating Pharaoh required a whole, united nation. And because Moses needed to teach Abraham's method to a whole nation, he wrote a new book, an adaptation of Abraham's teachings for an entire nation: The Torah (Pentateuch).

But the Creator, being a force of love and generosity, wanted to give more than to just one nation. He wanted the whole world to know that there was only one force and that they would take the gift He wished to give humanity—Himself.

So while Moses’ Torah was a big step forward, since it helped a whole nation connect with the Creator, it was not the end of the road. The end of the road will arrive only when the whole world is in touch with Him, experiencing the bond of love and unity that the ancient Babylonians did, before the first outbreak of egoism. Put differently, the end of the road will arrive when all of humanity reclaims what it once had, and then lost.

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In the article, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Kabbalist Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag describes the purpose of Creation as a “single, exalted goal described as ‘the revelation of His Godliness to His creatures in this world.’”

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The second stage in humanity’s spiritual evolution started about two thousand years ago, when The Book of Zohar, the most important book of Kabbalah, was written and then concealed. It was written shortly after the people of Israel were exiled for what was to be their last and longest exile.

Just like Abraham and Moses in Stage One, the second stage had two giants of its own: Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai (Rashbi) and The Holy Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria). Rashbi’s Book of Zohar is, as the book itself states, a commentary on the Torah. Just as Moses explained Abraham's words to the entire nation, The Book of Zohar is intended to explain Moses’ words to the entire world. This is why one often reads that The Book of Zohar is destined to appear in the time of the Messiah, at the “end of days.” It is also why Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, the great twentieth-century Kabbalist, wrote that the rediscovery of The Book of Zohar is proof that the “days of the Messiah” are here.

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“I have found it written that the above decree to not openly engage in the wisdom of truth was only for a time—until the end of 1490. From then on …the sentence has been lifted, and permission was given to engage in The Book of Zohar. And from the year 1540 it has become praiseworthy to engage in great numbers, since it is by this virtue that the Messiah King will come, and not by another virtue.”

–Rabbi Avraham Azulai

Introduction to the book, Ohr ha Chama (Light of the Sun)

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As always, the only antidote to a rise in egoism is unity, and the greater the egoism, the more important it is for people to unite. At first, uniting Abraham's followers and family was enough. Then, when Moses fled from Egypt, he had to unite a whole nation in order to succeed. Today, we need to unite the whole of humanity. Egoism has reached such an intensity that unless the whole of humankind unites to overcome it, we will not succeed.

The second stage in the process of humanity’s bonding with the Creator was very different from the first. It was a time of subtle growth, when the tool to unite humanity—the wisdom of Kabbalah—was being refined and improved in dimly lit rooms and within small, inconspicuous groups. This is why the two most significant works of that period, Rashbi’s Book of Zohar and the Ari’s Tree of Life, were hidden by their own authors as soon as they were completed. They resurfaced many years later, and in the case of The Zohar, many centuries later.

The third and last stage of humanity’s spiritual evolution actually began in the 1990s. In 1945, Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, author of the Sulam (Ladder) commentary on The Book of Zohar, predicted that the final stage would begin in 1995. Similarly, the Vilna Gaon (GRA) wrote in his book, The Voice of the Turtledove, that this stage would begin in 1990. Many other Kabbalists made similar predictions, leading to the conclusion that the future is already here, and now is the time to unite as one and defeat egoism once and for all.

Humanity’s entire history is paved with battles against egoism, followed by attempts to unite despite it. Today, most scientists agree that man’s self-centeredness and misunderstanding of Nature’s rules are the causes of all that is wrong with our world. Yehuda Ashlag wrote about this in the 1930s and 1940s, but in those days, he was a voice in the wilderness.

In recent years it has become evident that unless we change ourselves, the world will not change for the better. In fact, we are ruining our planet and our society in so many ways that solving the problems separately has become impossible. To solve our problems, we need an inclusive solution, which can only be found when we transform human egoism into altruism, and bond with the force of love—the Creator.

In his article, “Peace in the World,” Ashlag writes that if we unite, every single member of humankind will personally experience the Creator in the deepest sense of the word, as it is written, “they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them” (Jeremiah 31:33). The wisdom of Kabbalah has been prepared as a method that can help us do just that—unite—and experience the Creator. In his “Introduction to the Book of Zohar,” Ashlag wrote that if we integrate Kabbalah into our day-to-day lives, we will achieve the goal for which we were created, and we will again be “of one language and of one speech,” at one with the Creator, and we will never to part again.

Through the ages, many Kabbalists have written profound and beautiful books. But we would like to focus on four very special Kabbalists and their books. These men wrote their books specifically to help beginners become acquainted with Kabbalah. The exception is Rabbi Akiva, who did not leave a book as his contribution. Instead, he gifted us with such convincing concepts that they continue to influence us today.

Rabbi Akiva is the inspiration and the role model for all Kabbalists since his time—the first and second centuries CE. Following Rabbi Akiva came Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai (Rashbi), who gave us The Book of Zohar. Then, fourteen centuries later came Rabbi Isaac Luria (The Holy Ari), whose legacy is The Tree of Life; and last came Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), whose The Study of the Ten Sefirot is the one book without which a contemporary Kabbalah student cannot achieve spirituality.

These great Kabbalists adapted their texts to their generations. Hence, the language varies to suit their contemporaries’ levels of perception. But the message is always the same—Rabbi Akiva’s motto, “Love thy friend as thyself.” This message guides us back to Abraham's message that only through unity and bonding will we defeat egoism, achieve the Creator, and find a life of physical and spiritual bliss.

Let us now explore the personal stories of these pillars of spirituality.

Rabbi Akiva lived in the first and second centuries CE; he was the most prominent sage of his time. He was a leading pedagogue, the foremost Kabbalist of his time, and participated in the writing of the essential spiritual texts of his time—the Mishnah and the Halacha. At the same time, he was the spiritual leader of the Bar-Kokheva revolt, and was the man who revealed to the world the law of love.

Until the age of forty, Rabbi Akiva was an illiterate shepherd who led an ordinary life. He never dreamed that one day all of this would change dramatically.

The Turning Point

Until that turning point, Rabbi Akiva worked as the shepherd for Kalba Savua. Around age forty, he began to feel an uncontrollable urge to know the meaning of life and to discover the rules that govern it. At that time, he was romantically involved with Rachel, the daughter of Kalba Savua, one of the wealthiest and most respected men in Jerusalem at the time. The girl’s father was not happy with his daughter’s infatuation with a “simpleton.” But as the best stories go, love prevailed, and the lovers married against her father’s will.

According to the Talmud (a commentary on the Mishnah), it was Rachel who encouraged Rabbi Akiva to leave his home and go study Kabbalah from the greatest Kabbalists of the time. Her heart told her that only in this way would her husband find the answer to his questions. She made him swear he would not return before he has attained the laws of the Upper World. And thus, with his wife’s blessings, Rabbi Akiva’s spiritual path began.

Rabbi Akiva studied under three Kabbalists: Rabbi Elazar, Rabbi Yehoshua, and Nahum, Man of Gamzu. He climbed the rungs of the spiritual ladder degree by degree, and slowly surpassed his teachers, finally becoming the leading Kabbalist of his generation.

Once he had learned all he could from his mentors, Rabbi Akiva established his own seminary. Word of his wisdom spread quickly, and 24,000 students from all over the country came to learn from him.

Discovering the Law of Love

Rabbi Akiva’s unique teaching methods established brotherly love among his students. The physical reality obeys the same law of love, the Creator, which governs the spiritual realms. Therefore, when a person operates according to the law of love, he or she is in balance with Nature and feels as whole and eternal as Nature. But when we act out of self-love instead of brotherly love, we suffer and feel unhappy.

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Happiness or unhappiness don’t come to us from outside ourselves; they are a direct result of our similarity to Nature (the Creator). The Creator gives us nothing but good things because He is a force of love. But if we are opposite from Him, we cannot receive them. This is the cause of every pain and misfortune in the world.

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Rabbi Akiva discovered that the law of Nature, the law of love, is constant and unchanging. He learned that when we change our attitude to others, we suddenly feel the whole of reality change, too. He recognized that egoistic relationships are the cause of every form of suffering in the world.

The ego, or as Kabbalists call it, “self-love,” locks us within the limited reality we sense, and doesn’t let us into the eternal, spiritual realm of life. The only way to experience the eternal is by changing our attitude toward others. Rabbi Akiva summarized his findings in his famous maxim, “Love thy friend as thyself; this is a great rule in the Torah (teaching).”

The Bar-Kokheva Revolt

In the year 132 CE, under the leadership of Shimon Bar-Kokheva, the Kingdom of Judea rebelled against the Romans. It seemed as if they would be successful when the Romans were forced to retreat. In desperation, the Romans called for assistance, and when the fresh troops arrived, the balance of power shifted. The Romans destroyed everything on their path and conquered the Kingdom of Judea. Tens of thousands of Jews were killed, and those who were taken captive were sold to slavery.

Crushing Bar-Kokheva’s rebellion was the beginning of one of the most meaningful periods in the history of Kabbalah. The physical ruin of Judea was a manifestation of its people’s spiritual decline, and the clearest symbol of this waning was the building of the pagan city of Aelia Capitolina on the ruins of Jerusalem.

Kabbalists who continued to teach despite the ruin were tortured to death, and Rabbi Akiva would become one of these victims. He continued to teach and share Kabbalah wisdom until he, too, was seized by the Romans. They sent him off to Caesarea Prison, where he was brutally executed by the Roman commissioner.

Two Blows to Rabbi Akiva’s Work

In the past 5,000 years or so, humanity experienced several outbreaks of egoism. Each outbreak manifested in people wanting more than they did before, and each changed the course of history.

The first outbreak occurred in Babel, at the time of Abraham. The second was during Moses’ time, and the third was during Rabbi Akiva’s time. As a result of this last burst of egoism, the brotherly love among Rabbi Akiva’s students was overthrown by unfounded hatred. This led to the spiritual decline of his students, who were no longer able to perceive the spiritual world, but were limited to perceiving only this world.

After the students fell into unfounded hatred, they suffered another blow. They were struck by a plague, killing all but five of Rabbi Akiva’s 24,000 students. The remaining five survived because they had retained their sense of brotherly love. One of the five survivors of the plague was the man who was to continue Rabbi Akiva’s teaching and put it to writing. His name was Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai, who would later write The Book of Zohar.

Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai (Rashbi) received, through his mentor, Rabbi Akiva, 3,000 years of accumulated spiritual knowledge—all acquired by Kabbalists before him. After he wrote it down, he hid it, as humanity was not yet ready for it. Today, according to prominent Kabbalists such as Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag and The Vilna Gaon (GRA), we are indeed ready for the revelation of The Book of Zohar.

Rashbi, author of The Book of Zohar (The Book of Radiance) was a Tana—a great sage in the early Common Era centuries. He was also Rabbi Akiva’s direct disciple. Numerous legends have been told about Rashbi, who was mentioned repeatedly in the Talmud and in the Midrash, the sacred Hebrew texts of his time.

Rashbi was born and raised in the Galilee. He lived in Sidon (a city in today’s Lebanon) and in Meron (in the north of Israel), and established a seminary in the Western Galilee, not far from Meron.

Even as a child, he was different from other children his age. Questions such as, “What is the purpose of my life?” “Who am I?” and “How is the world built?” haunted him, demanding that he discover the answers.

In those days, life in Galilee was harsh: the Romans who had killed his teacher, Rabbi Akiva, still persecuted Jews and continually invented new laws to punish them. Among these laws was one that prohibited Jews from studying Kabbalah.

But despite the Romans’ prohibition, Rashbi immersed himself in Kabbalah studies and tried to understand its intricacies. He felt that beneath the Biblical stories lay a profound, hidden meaning that held the answers to his persistent questions.

Gradually, Rashbi came to realize that he had to find a teacher who had already traversed the spiritual path, gained experience, and could guide him up the spiritual ladder. This prompted him to join Rabbi Akiva’s group, a decision that would be the turning point in Rashbi’s life.

From Student to Fugitive

Rashbi was an avid, devoted student, burning with the desire to discover the Upper Force. . He studied with Rabbi Akiva for thirteen years, and achieved the highest degree on the spiritual ladder.

The Bar-Kokheva revolt against the Roman rule in the land of Israel abruptly ended the great days of Rabbi Akiva’s seminary. Rashbi joined the revolt and became one of its leaders, and after he learned how his teacher, Rabbi Akiva, had been executed, his resistance became even fiercer.

The Talmud says that once, when Rashbi spoke against the Roman rule, someone overheard him and notified the Roman authorities. The Romans tried Rashbi in his absence and sentenced him to death. But to execute Rashbi, they had to seize him first. The Roman emperor sent men to search for him, but to their disappointment, Rashbi seemed to have completely vanished.

The Cave at Piqiin

According to tradition, Rashbi and his son fled to Piqiin, a village in the north of Israel, where they hid in a cave and delved into the secrets of the wisdom of Kabbalah, where they discovered the entire system of creation.

After thirteen years in the cave, Rashbi heard that the Roman emperor had died. Finally, he could heave a sigh of relief. After leaving the cave, Rashbi gathered nine students and went with them to another small cave, known as The Idra Raba (The Great Assembly), not far from the village of Meron. With their help, he wrote The Book of Zohar, the most important book of Kabbalah.

Kabbalist Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag described Rashbi and his students as the only people who achieved perfection—the 125 spiritual degrees that complete the correction of the soul. When he finished his commentary on The Book of Zohar, Ashlag held a festive meal to celebrate its completion. At that celebration, he stated that “…prior to the days of the Messiah, it was impossible to be awarded all 125 degrees… except for the Rashbi and his contemporaries, the authors of The Book of Zohar. They were awarded all 125 degrees in completeness, even though they lived prior to the days of the Messiah.”

This is why it is often written in The Book of Zohar that there will not be a generation such as Rashbi’s until “the generation of the Messiah King,” (the time when all of humanity is corrected. This is why Rabbi Shimon’s composition made such a mark in the world, since the spiritual secrets in it extend to all 125 degrees.

One in Millions

Rashbi was a unique soul, whose task was to help every creature connect with the Upper Force. This kind of soul comes down into our world and dresses as the greatest Kabbalists. Each time such a soul appears, it promotes humanity to a new spiritual degree and leaves its mark in Kabbalah books, which serve the following generations.

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“This composition, called The Book of Zohar, is like Noah’s Ark: there were many kinds, but those kinds and families could not exist unless by entering the ark. …Thus the righteous will enter the secret of the Light of this composition to persist, and thus is the virtue of the composition, that immediately when engaging …it will draw him as a magnet draws the iron. And he will enter it to save his soul and spirit and his correction.”

–The Rav Kook, Ohr Yakar (Bright Light)

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The Book of Zohar is undoubtedly one of the world’s most renowned compositions. It has been the topic of thousands of stories, and although it was written almost two thousand years ago, the book is still shrouded in mystery. The fascination around it is so great that even though the book is completely incomprehensible to our generation without proper interpretation, millions of people diligently attempt to probe its secrets.

Within a mere year and half, Isaac Luria (the Holy Ari) revolutionized Kabbalah and made it accessible to all. Since his time, his “Lurianic Kabbalah” has become the predominant approach to the study of Kabbalah.

The Ari was the greatest Kabbalist in 16th century Safed, a town near Rashbi’s village, Meron. In the Ari’s time, Safed was famed for its Kabbalist population.

The story of the Ari’s life is shrouded in mystery and legends. One such legend is that when he was born, his father was told that his son was destined for greatness. The Ari’s sudden demise at age thirty-eight, when he was in his prime, is still a mystery today.

A Man of Mystery and Legend

The Ari was born in Jerusalem in 1534. At the age of eight, he lost his father, and his family was left destitute. Driven by despair, his mother decided to send young Isaac to live with his uncle in Egypt, where he spent most of his life.

As a young boy, the Ari would confine himself to his room for hours or even days at a time. He would immerse himself in The Book of Zohar, trying to understand its subtleties. Many folk stories claim that the Ari was awarded “the revelation of Elijah” (a unique spiritual revelation), and that he learned The Zohar “from him.” To the Ari, The Book of Zohar was the whole world.

As the capital of Kabbalist studies in the 16th century, Safed attracted many practitioners from near and far. Additionally, Safed is located not far from Mt. Meron, the burial place of Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai, and in close vicinity to Rashbi’s cave, the Idra Raba.

In the year 1570, a harsh winter struck Egypt. Torrential rains created massive flash floods, gale force winds tore rooftops off homes, and the Nile spilled over its banks, inundating whole villages under a deluge of mud and water.

One legend has it that Prophet Elijah visited the Ari on one of the stormiest nights of that dreadful winter and told him, “Your end is near. Leave here; take your family and go to the town of Safed, where you are eagerly awaited. There, in Safed, you will find your disciple, Chaim Vital. You will convey your wisdom to him, anoint him after you, and he will take your place.”

Thus, in the dead of winter, the Ari went to Safed, in the land of Israel. He was thirty-six at the time, and he had two years left to live.

Preparing for the Revelation

Kabbalists kept the wisdom of Kabbalah hidden for 1,500 years prior to the Ari, ever since Rashbi had concealed The Book of Zohar. They would rise at midnight, light a candle and shut the windows so their voices would not be heard outside. Then they would reverently open the Kabbalah books and delve into them, striving to grasp their hidden truths. Kabbalists were reluctant to publicize their work because they feared it would be misinterpreted. The Book of Zohar stated that it would reappear when the generation was ready, and at the time of the Ari, Kabbalists felt that the time was not yet ready.

Humanity had been waiting for many centuries for the right guide to open the gates of the wisdom of Kabbalah to the public. Finally, with the arrival of the Ari in Safed and the public’s subsequent exposure to The Book of Zohar, it appeared that it was finally time to introduce the secrets of Kabbalah to the world.

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Curiously, around the time of the Ari, and without any direct contact, many people, specifically artists and intellectuals, developed a keen interest in Kabbalah. One of these people was Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), an Italian scholar. His book, Conclusions, contains the following statement: “This true interpretation of the law … which was revealed to Moses in godly tradition is called Kabbalah… which to Hebrews is the same as for us ‘receiving.’”

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It is difficult to overstate the Ari’s importance and stature. Within merely eighteen months, he had left a huge mark on the history of Kabbalistic thought and teaching methods. His teachings introduced a new, systematic presentation of the spiritual knowledge. Using the Ari’s method, anyone in today’s scientific age can achieve what only a chosen few could achieve before.

Among the Ari’s books, The Tree of Life is probably the most important. This book presents the Ari’s teachings in a clear and simple style. Over the years, The Tree of Life has become one of the essential texts in Kabbalah, second only to The Book of Zohar.

The Ari passed away at age thirty-eight after falling ill with a plague that broke out in the summer of 1572. His appearance was a forerunner to a whole new era. He was not only one of the greatest Kabbalists, but also one of the first to be given “permission from Above” to disclose the wisdom of Kabbalah to the world. His ability to transform Kabbalah from a method for a chosen few to a method for all, made him a spiritual giant for the ages. Today, many more souls are ready for spiritual ascension, and to do so, they need to learn his method, the Lurianic Kabbalah

Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag is better known as Baal HaSulam (Owner of the Ladder) for his Sulam (Ladder) commentary on The Book of Zohar. Baal HaSulam spent his entire life interpreting the wisdom of Kabbalah, innovating and spreading it throughout Israel and the world at large. He adapted the Ari’s Lurianic Kabbalah to our generation, and in doing so enabled everyone to study the roots of the reality in which we live, and thus perceive life’s ultimate purpose.

Because Baal HaSulam was born when the world was ready to know about Kabbalah, his writings carry a distinct “multinational” nature. He predicted processes such as the fall of Russia’s communism and globalization long before they became evident to the rest of us, and presented them in context with humanity’s spiritual correction.

Baal HaSulam was born in Warsaw, Poland and studied Kabbalah with Rabbi Yehoshua of Porsov. In 1921, he immigrated with his family to Israel (which was then called Palestine) and settled in the Old City of Jerusalem.

The rumor of his arrival quickly spread throughout the city and he soon became known for his knowledge in Kabbalah. Gradually, a group of students formed around him, who would arrive at his home in the wee hours of the night to study Kabbalah. Subsequently, Baal HaSulam moved from the Old City of Jerusalem to another Jerusalem neighborhood, Givat Shaul, where he served as the neighborhood rabbi for several years.

His Major Works

His two principal works, the fruit of long years of labor, are The Study of the Ten Sefirot, based on the writings of the Ari, and The Book of Zohar with the Sulam (Ladder) Commentary. The publication of the sixteen parts of The Study of the Ten Sefirot began in 1937. The Book of Zohar with the Sulam Commentary was published in eighteen volumes between 1945-1953. Subsequently, Baal HaSulam wrote three additional volumes in which he interpreted The New Zohar. The publication of the latter interpretation was completed in 1955, after his demise.

In the introduction to his commentary on The Book of Zohar, he explained why he called it “The Ladder.” “I have called my interpretation The Sulam (Ladder), to show that the role of my commentary is as the role of any ladder: if you have an attic filled with goodly matters, you need only a ladder to climb it, and all the abundance of the world is in your hands.”

Baal HaSulam composed a series of introductions that initiate the student into effective study of Kabbalah texts, and clarify the study method. These include “The Preface to The Book of Zohar,” “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” “Preface to The Sulam Commentary,” “A General Preface to The Tree of Life,” and “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot.”

In 1940, Baal HaSulam published a paper he called The Nation. In his last years, he wrote The Writings of the Last Generation, in which he analyzed different types of government, and outlined a detailed plan for building the corrected society for the future.

Spreading the Word

Baal HaSulam did not settle for simply putting his ideas on paper. Instead, he worked arduously to promote them. As part of his efforts, he met with prominent figures in Israel such as David Ben Gurion, Chaim Nachman Bialik, Zalman Shazar, and many others.

David Ben Gurion, the first Prim Minister of Israel, wrote in his diaries that he met with Baal HaSulam several times, and that these meetings surprised him because “I wanted to talk to him about Kabbalah, and he, about socialism.”

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“Indeed we have already come to such a degree that the whole world is considered one collective and one society. Meaning, because each person in the world sucks his life’s marrow and his livelihood from all the people in the world, he is coerced to serve and care for the well-being of the whole world. … The possibility of making good, happy, and peaceful conducts in one state is inconceivable when it is not so in all the countries in the world.”

–Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”

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An excerpt from the newspaper Haaretz, published December 16, 2004: “One day in Jerusalem of the early 1950s, Shlomo Shoham, later an Israel prize-winning author and criminologist, set out to look for Kabbalist Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag. …Ashlag at that time was trying to print Hasulam (literally, The Ladder), his Hebrew translation and commentary on The Book of Zohar… Whenever he would raise a little money, from small donations, he would print parts of his Hasulam.

‘I found him standing in a dilapidated building, almost a shack, which housed an old printing press. He couldn't afford to pay a typesetter and was doing the typesetting himself, letter by letter, standing over the printing press for hours at a time, despite the fact that he was in his late sixties. Ashlag was clearly a Tzadik (righteous man)—a humble man, with a radiant face. But he was an absolutely marginal figure and terribly impoverished. I later heard that he spent so many hours setting type that the lead used in the printing process damaged his health.’”

It took over half a century for his greatness to be recognized, but today his achievements are well known. In recent years, his teaching has attracted a great deal of attention, and hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world study his works, which have been translated into many different languages. Now, anyone who truly wishes to climb to the spiritual world can easily do so.

Baal HaSulam was a fascinating and complex individual, broadminded and well-educated. He was very much involved in global events as well as in the events that occurred in Israel, where he lived. His views are considered revolutionary and far-reaching in their boldness, even today

Baal HaSulam passed away in 1954, but his ideas have been perpetuated by his successor, his firstborn son, Rabbi Baruch Shalom Ashlag.

As we wrote in the beginning of Part One, reality is an internal matter, a reflection of our inner experiences. These experiences “project” themselves onto our consciousness, as if on a movie screen, so we think that they are real. Part Two will focus on the origin of these pictures and their purpose in our lives.

Now that we have established the importance of the study of Kabbalah, it’s time to learn some of its basic ideas. Even though the scope of this book does not allow for a thorough study of the spiritual worlds, by the end of this chapter you will have a solid enough basis to continue, should you want to study Kabbalah in depth.

Creation is made entirely of a desire to receive pleasure. This desire evolved in four phases, the last of which is called “a creature.” This template structure of evolution of desires is the basis for everything that exists.

Figure 1 describes the five phases of the making of the creature. If we treat this process as a story, it will help us remember that the drawings describe changes in our emotions, and not places or objects.

The Thought of Creation

Before anything is created, it has to be thought out, planned. In this case, we are talking about Creation and the thought that caused Creation to happen. We call it “The Thought of Creation.”

In the first chapter, we said that Abraham, who discovered the wisdom of Kabbalah and was the first to disseminate it, discovered that the universe was “obeying” a force of love and giving. Because he realized this was the force that created all of life, he called it “the Creator.” Hence, in Kabbalah, the term “Nature” is interchangeable with the term, “Creator.” He also said that the Creator’s will is to give us a very special kind of gift: becoming like Him. Since His is the most perfect, omnipotent, omniscient state that can exist, and since He is a force of love, He wants to give us the best: Himself.

Figure 1 describes the Thought of Creation as a desire to give pleasure (called “Light”) to the creatures. This is also the root of Creation, where we, and all of life began.

Kabbalists use the term Kli (vessel, receptacle) to describe the desire to receive the pleasure, the Light. The vessel is the spiritual sense, the tool that perceives the Creator. Now we can see why Kabbalists called their wisdom “the wisdom of Kabbalah” (the wisdom of receiving).

There is also a good reason why Kabbalists called pleasure “Light.” When the Kli—a creature, a person—feels the Creator, it is an experience of great wisdom that dawns on a person. When that happens to us, we realize that the newly manifested wisdom has always been there, but was hidden. It’s as if the night’s darkness has turned to daylight and the invisible has been made visible. Because this Light brings knowledge with it, Kabbalists called it “Light of Wisdom,” and the method to receive it, “the wisdom of Kabbalah.”

Four Basic Phases (and their root)

Let’s go back to our story of creation. To put the thought of creation into practice, the Creator designed a Creation that specifically wants to receive the pleasure of being identical to the Creator. If you’re a parent, you know how that feels. What warmer words can someone say to a proud father than, “Your son’s the spitting image of you!”?

As we’ve just said, the Thought of Creation—to give pleasure to the creature—is the root of Creation. For this reason, the Thought of Creation is called “the Root Phase” or “Phase Zero.” The desire to receive the pleasure is called “Phase One.”

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Note that Phase Zero is shown as a downward arrow. Whenever an arrow points down, it means that Light comes from the Creator to Creation. But the opposite is not true: an upward arrow doesn’t mean that Creation gives Light to the Creator, but that it wants to give back to Him. What happens when there are two arrows pointing in opposite directions? Keep reading and you’ll soon find out.

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Kabbalists refer to the Creator as “the Will to Bestow,” and to the creature as “the will to receive delight and pleasure” or simply “the will to receive.” We will talk about our perception of the Creator later, but what’s important at this point is that Kabbalists always tell us what they perceive. They don’t tell us that the Creator has a desire to give; they tell us that they see that the Creator has a desire to give, and that this is why they called Him “the Will to Bestow.” Because they also discovered in themselves a desire to receive the pleasure He wants to give, they called themselves, “the will to receive.”

So the will to receive is the first creation, the root of every single creature. When Creation, the will to receive, feels that the pleasure comes from a giver, she senses that real pleasure lies in giving, not in receiving. As a result, the will to receive begins to want to give (note the upward arrow extending from the second Kli—the cup in the drawing). This is a whole new phase—Phase Two.

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In Kabbalah, a giving degree is considered male and a receiving degree is considered female. Within each degree there are states in which it is acting as male or as female; hence, we sometimes refer to a certain degree as male, and sometimes as female, even within the same paragraph. The only two exceptions to this rule are the Creator, who is always male, being the source, and Creation, which is always female, since she receives from Him.

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Let’s examine what distinguishes Phase Two from Phase One. If we examine Figure 1, we will see that the Kli itself doesn’t change throughout the phases. This means that the will to receive is unchanging. Because the will to receive was designed in the Thought of Creation, it is eternal and can never be changed.

What does change, however, is what the Kli wants to receive. In Phase Two, the will to receive wants to receive pleasure from giving, not from receiving, and this is a fundamental change. The fundamental difference is that Phase Two needs another being to whom it can give. Therefore, to be a giver, Phase Two has to relate positively to someone or something else besides itself.

Phase Two, which forces us to give despite our underlying desire to receive, is what makes life possible. Without it, parents wouldn’t care for their children and social life would have been impossible. For example, if I owned a restaurant, my underlying desire would be to make money. But to do so, I would be feeding strangers whom I have real no desire to benefit. The same is true for bankers, sales persons, and even cab drivers.

Now we can see why Nature’s law is that of altruism and giving, not the law of receiving, even though the will to receive lies at the basis of every creature’s motivation, as dictated by the Thought of Creation. From the minute we have both a desire to receive and a desire to give within Creation, everything that will happen to her will stem from reciprocity, the “relationship” between Phases One and Two.

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Because the will to receive is opposite from the Creator’s will to bestow, it is what distinguishes and separates us from the Creator. But the Creator didn’t just create us opposite from Him; He also gave us a way to bridge the gap, and this is what we learn in the wisdom of Kabbalah.

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As we’ve just shown, the new desire to give in Phase Two forces Creation to communicate, to seek someone who needs to receive. Therefore, Phase Two begins to examine what and how it can give to the Creator. After all, to whom else could it give?

But when Phase Two actually tries to give, it discovers that all the Creator wants is to give. He has absolutely no desire to receive. Besides, what can Creation give to the Creator?

Moreover, Phase Two discovers that at its core, its real desire is to receive. It discovers that its root is essentially a will to receive delight and pleasure, and there is not an ounce of genuine desire to bestow within it.

However, because the Creator only wants to give, Creation’s will to receive is precisely what she can give to the Creator. By receiving, Creation discovers, she will actually be giving pleasure to the Creator, since giving is what pleases Him.

This may sound confusing, but if you think of the pleasure a mother derives from nurturing her baby, you will realize that the baby is actually giving pleasure to its mother simply by receiving the nurturing.

Hence, in Phase Three, Creation—the will to receive — chooses to receive. In so doing, she gives back to Root Phase, to the Creator.

Now we have a complete cycle where both players are givers. In Phase Zero, the Creator gives to Creation (Phase One). And in Phase Three, Creation, having gone through Phases One and Two, gives back to the Creator by receiving from Him.

In Figure 1, Phase Three is described as a Kli with two arrows, one pointing up and the other pointing down. The downward arrow indicates that Phase Three receives, as in Phase One, and the upward arrow indicates that its intention is to give, as in Phase Two.

Once again, both actions use the same will to receive as in Phases One and Two. This doesn’t change at all. What does change is the intention with which Phase Three receives: in Phase One, it receives without thinking about it, but in Phase Three it receives in order to please the Creator.

As we’ve seen before, our egoistic intentions are the reason for all the problems in the world. Here, too, at the root of Creation, the intention is much more important than the action itself. To demonstrate this hierarchy, Baal HaSulam metaphorically says that Phase Three is ten percent receiving and ninety percent giving.

Phase Four – Craving the Creator’s Mind

Now it seems we have a perfect cycle where the Creator has succeeded in making the creature identical to Himself—a giver. Moreover, Creation enjoys this giving, and thus pleases the Creator.

But does this complete the Thought of Creation? Not quite. In a sense, we can say about Creation that she can walk His walk and talk His talk, but she cannot think His thought. The act of reception (in Phase One) and the understanding that the Creator’s only wish is to give (in Phase Two) make Creation want to be in the Creator’s state, which is Phase Three.

But becoming a giver like the Creator doesn’t mean that Creation has achieved the Creator’s state. To complete the Thought of Creation, she must achieve the Creator’s thought, not just His actions. In such a state, she would understand why the Creator formed her. Clearly, the desire to understand the Thought of Creation is an entirely new phase. The only thing we can compare it to is a child who wants to be both as strong and as wise as its parents. We instinctively know that this is possible only when the child matures and steps into his or her parents’ shoes. This is why parents so often say to their kids, “Wait until you have children of your own; then you’ll understand.”

In Kabbalah, understanding the Thought of Creation—the deepest level of understanding—is called “attainment.” This is what the will to receive craves in Phase Four.

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One of the most common terms in Kabbalah is Sefirot.

The word comes from the Hebrew word, Sapir (sapphire) and each Sefira (singular for Sefirot) has its own Light. Also, each of the four phases is named after one or more Sefira. Phase Zero is named Keter, Phase One, Hochma, Phase Two, Bina, Phase Three, Zeir Anpin, and Phase Four, Malchut.

Actually, there are ten Sefirot because Zeir Anpin is composed of six Sefirot: Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, and Yesod. Therefore, the complete set of Sefirot is Keter, Hochma, Bina, Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut.

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The desire to acquire the Thought of Creation is the most powerful force in Creation. It stands behind the whole process of evolution. Whether we are aware of it or not, the ultimate knowledge we all seek is the understanding of why the Creator does what He does. It is the same drive that urged Kabbalists to discover the secrets of Creation thousands of years ago. Until we understand it, we will have no peace of mind.

Even though the Creator wants us to receive the pleasure of becoming identical to Him, He didn’t give us this desire to begin with. All that He gave us—Creation—was an infinite craving for pleasure. However, as we can see in the sequence of phases, the Creator did not infuse Creation with a specific desire to be like Him. This evolved within her through the phases.

In Phase Three, Creation had already received everything and intended to give back to the Creator. The sequence could have ended right then and there, since she was already doing exactly what the Creator was doing—giving. In that sense, Creator and Creation were already identical.

But Creation did not settle for giving. She wanted to understand what made giving pleasurable, why a giving force was necessary to create reality, and what wisdom the giver obtained by giving. In short, Creation wanted to understand the Thought of Creation. This was a new craving that the Creator had not “planted” in her.

When Creation developed the desire to become like the Creator, she became a distinct, separated being from the Him. We can look at it this way: If I want to be like someone else, it necessarily means that I’m aware that that someone else exists, and that that someone has something that I want. It may be that person’s possession or a quality; but it is something that the other has that I would very much like to have, too.

In such a state, I not only realize that there is someone else besides me, but I realize that that someone is not only different from me, but better. Otherwise, why would I want to be like Him?

Therefore, Malchut, Phase Four, is very different from the first three phases because it wants to receive a very specific kind of pleasure (hence the thicker arrow)—that of being identical to the Creator. From the Creator’s perspective, Malchut’s desire completes the Thought of Creation, the cycle that He originally had in mind (Figure 2).

As Figure 2 indicates, achieving the Thought of Creation will elevate Malchut (Creation) to a higher degree than its own root, a higher place than the Source that created it. Put simply, it would raise Malchut to the level of the Creator and make it identical to Him.

But alas, we are not looking at things from the Creator’s perspective. From down here, with our broken spiritual spectacles, the picture is less than ideal. In order for Creation, who is completely opposite from the Creator, to become like the Creator, she must use her will to receive with the intention to bestow. By doing that, she will turn her focus from her own pleasure to the joy the Creator receives from giving. And in so doing, she , too, will become a giver.

Actually, in Phase Three, Creation already received in order to give to the Creator. So from the Creator’s perspective, Phase Three had already completed the job of becoming identical to the Creator. The Creator gives in order to bestow, and Phase Three receives in order to bestow, so in that sense they are the same.

But the ultimate pleasure is not in knowing what the Creator does and replicating His actions. The ultimate pleasure is in knowing why He does what He does, acquiring the same thoughts as His, and even the same nature. And this knowledge—the Creator's nature—hasn’t been given to Creation. It is what Creation (Phase Four) must achieve on her own.

There is a beautiful connection here. On the one hand, it seems as if we (Creation) and the Creator are on opposite sides of the court, because we receive what He gives. But in fact, His greatest pleasure is to see us becoming like Him, and our greatest pleasure would be to become like Him. Similarly, every child wants to become like its parents, and every parent naturally wants his or her child to achieve what the parent did not.

Therefore, we and the Creator are actually pursuing the same goal! If we could comprehend this concept, our lives would be very, very different. Instead of the confusion and disorientation so many of us experience today, we and the Creator could march together toward our designated goal since the dawn of Creation.

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Kabbalists use many terms to describe “the will to bestow”: Creator, Light, Giver, Thought of Creation, Phase Zero, Root, Root Phase, Keter, Bina, and many others.

Similarly, they use many terms to describe “the will to receive”: Creation, creature, Kli, receivers, Phase One, Hochma, and Malchut are just a few.

These terms refer to subtleties in the two characteristics—bestowal and reception. If we remember that, we will not be confused by all the names.

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To become like the Creator, a giver, the Kli does two things. First, it stops receiving altogether, an act called Tzimtzum (restriction). It stops the Light entirely and doesn’t allow any of it into the Kli. Similarly, it’s easier to avoid eating something tasty, but unhealthy, than to eat just a little and leave the rest on the plate. Therefore, making a Tzimtzum is the first and easiest step to becoming like the Creator. The ability to make the Tzimtzum is called “acquiring a Masach (screen).” Figure 3 shows how the Creator’s Light approaches the Kli but is rejected by the Masach.

Figure 3: The Masach stops the Creator’s Light (downward arrow) from entering because Creation doesn’t want to be a receiver, but a giver, like the Creator. In that state, if receiving Light means being less similar to the Creator, Creation prefers to remain dark.

The next thing that Malchut does is to set up a mechanism that examines the Light (pleasure) and decides if it will receive it, and if so, how much. This mechanism is a development of the Masach (screen).

The condition by which the Masach determines how much to receive is called “aim to bestow.” In simple terms, the Kli only takes in what it can receive with the intention to please the Creator, or as Kabbalists put it, “in order to bestow” (Figure 4). The Light received within the Kli is called “Inner Light,” and the Light that remains outside is called “Surrounding Light.”

Figure 4: The Masach separates the Light that Creation can receive in order to bestow—Inner Light—from the Light it cannot receive with this aim—Surrounding Light.

At the end of the correctionprocess, the Kli will receive all of the Creator’s Light and unite with Him. This is the purpose of Creation. When we reach that state, we will feel it both as individuals and as a single, united society. This is because the complete Kli is not made of one person’s desires, but of the desires of all of humanity. And when we complete this last correction, we will become identical to the Creator, Phase Four will be fulfilled, and Creation will be completed from our perspective, just as it is completed from His.

To carry out the task of becoming identical to the Creator, the first thing Creation must obtain is the right environment to evolve and become Creator-like. This environment is called “worlds.”

At Phase Four, Creation was divided into two parts: upper and lower (Figure 5). The upper part constitutes the Upper (Spiritual) Worlds, and the lower part constitutes Creation, which is made of desires where the Masach did not allow the Light to enter.

Using the Screen

Let’s talk some more about Phase Four and how it works with the Masach. After all, Phase Four is our root, so if we understand how it works, we might learn something about ourselves.

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Upper and Lower

We already know that Creation is made of one thing only: a will to receive delight and pleasure. Therefore, upper and lower do not relate to places, but to desires that we relate to as higher or lower. In other words, higher desires are desires we appreciate more than the desires we consider inferior. In the case of Phase Four, any desire that can be used to bestow upon the Creator belongs in the upper part, and any desire that can’t be used in this way belongs in the lower part.

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Phase Four, Malchut, evolved from Phase Three, which evolved from Phase Two, etc.. Similarly, Abraham Lincoln wasn’t born president of the United States of America. He grew from baby Abe to a child, then to a youth, and finally to an adult who one day became Mr. President.

But Abe’s early stages did not disappear when he became president. Without them, President Lincoln would not have become President Lincoln. The reason we can’t see them is because the most developed level dominates and overshadows the less developed. But the last, highest level, not only feels the other levels within it, it works with these other levels. This is why we sometimes feel like children, especially when touched in places in our personalities where we haven’t matured. These places are not covered by a grownup layer, and those soft spots make us feel as defenseless as kids.

Nevertheless, this multi-layered structure is what enables us to eventually become parents. In the process of raising children, we combine our past and present phases. We understand the situations our children experience because we’ve had similar experiences, and we can relate to those situations with the knowledge and experience we’ve accumulated through life.

The reason we are built this way is that Malchut (Creation, Phase Four, us) is built in exactly the same way. All of Malchut’s previous phases exist within it and help sustain its structure.

To become as similar to the Creator as possible, Malchut analyzes each level of desire within itself and splits these desires into workable and unworkable ones within each level. The workable desires will be used to receive in order to give to the Creator, as well as “help” the Creator complete His task of making Malchut identical to Him.

A few pages back, we said that to carry out the task of becoming identical to the Creator, the creature must create the right environment to evolve and become Creator-like. That’s exactly what the worlds—workable desires—do. They “show” the unworkable desires how to receive in order to bestow upon the Creator, and in so doing, help the unworkable desires correct themselves.

We can picture the relationship between the worlds and Creation as a group of construction workers, where one of the workers doesn’t know what to do. The worlds teach Creation by demonstrating how to do each task: how to drill, how to use a hammer, a level, and so on.

In the case of spirituality, the worlds show Creation what the Creator has given them and how they work with it in the right way. Bit by bit, Creation can begin to use her desires in this way, too.

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From all we’ve learned so far, we still don’t know which of the five worlds we talked about is our physical world. Actually, none of them is ours. Keep in mind that there are no “places” in spirituality, only states. The higher the world, the more altruistic a state it represents. The reason our world isn’t mentioned anywhere is that the spiritual worlds are altruistic, and our world is, like us, egoistic. Because egoism is opposite to altruism, our world is detached from the system of the spiritual worlds. This is why Kabbalists did not mention it in the structure they depicted in their books.

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Workable and Unworkable Desires

Earlier in this chapter we said that the four-phase pattern is the basis for everything that exists. Therefore, when the desires were split into those that could receive Light, and those that couldn’t, they followed the same four-phase pattern. The desires that could receive Light are called “workable desires,” and desires that can’t receive Light are called “unworkable desires.”

The workable desires created the Upper Worlds, and the unworkable desires created Creation, and later our world (Figure 6). The workable desires at the Root Phase created the world Adam Kadmon, and the unworkable ones that remained dark (without Light) were called “still,” and formed the still (unchanging) level of Creation.

Workable desires at Phase One created the world Atzilut, and the unworkable ones remained dark and constitute the “Vegetative” level of Creation. Workable desires at Phase Two created the world Beria, and the unworkable ones constitute the “Animate” level of Creation. Similarly, workable desires at Phase Three constitute the world Yetzira, and the unworkable ones constitute the “Speaking” level of Creation. And finally, workable desires at Phase Four constitute the world Assiya, and unworkable ones remained dark and constitute the “Spiritual” level of Creation.

Note that the strongest desires, the most egoistic and seemingly most remote from the Creator, are called “spiritual.” Just as in the four phases, the most powerful desire wishes to become like the Creator. Hence, only the last degree, which is seemingly the darkest and most egoistic, can develop a desire to be like the Creator and achieve spirituality.

It turns out that Creation is the only part that still needs to be “worked on,” so it can receive Light. Let us learn how Creation evolved, how it became our world, and how we can correct it.

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It is important to remember that the Upper Worlds do not actually exist until we discover them as we develop our spiritual perception as we become like the Creator. The reason Kabbalists speak of these worlds in past tense is that they wrote their books for us after they climbed from our world to the spiritual worlds, and then told us what they had found.

To reveal the Upper Worlds, we, too, must climb there and see for ourselves. The only way to do that is by becoming similar to the Creator — altruistic. ___________________________________________________________________

The actual root of everything that happens here in our world is called “the common soul,” or as Kabbalists refer to it, Adam ha Rishon (The First Man). Adam ha Rishon is a structure of desires that emerged once the formation of the spiritual worlds was completed.

Once the five worlds, Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya completed their development of the upper part of Phase Four, it was time to develop the lower part. Adam ha Rishon, which we know as “Adam,” is made of unworkable desires that couldn’t receive Light in order to give to the Creator when they were first created. If you look back at Figure 6, Adam is the next step in the development of Creation, and consists of the parts shown in the grey area in the drawing. The unworkable desires in that part, which formed the still, vegetative, animate, speaking, and spiritual, must now surface one by one and become corrected, or workable.

To do that, these desires will need the help of the worlds, the workable desires. This is why Adam ha Rishon evolves by the same degrees as did the worlds and the four basic phases.

The Great Fall

But with Adam, matters aren’t as straightforward as they were with the Upper Worlds. Although Adam is not aware of it, his desires are egoistic, self-centered; this is why he couldn’t receive Light to begin with. When he followed the example of the Upper Worlds and tried to receive Light, the pleasure of the Light was overwhelming and he wanted to receive it for himself.

Recall that when the Phase Four realized she wanted to become like the Creator, the first thing she did was to abstain from receiving Light for her own pleasure, in an act called “the Tzimtzum (restriction).” Adam’s present attempt to receive the Light despite the Tzimtzum was an attempt to revoke that decision. As a result, the Tzimtzum was reinforced in full power, and the Masach (screen) immediately repelled all the Light that Adam had received.

The repelling of the Light in Adam’s case is very different from the original Tzimtzum. When the Tzimtzum first occurred, it was a move forward from a state of reception without any consideration of the giver, the Creator. In Adam’s case, however, the pleasure made him “blot out” the Creator from his consciousness so he could receive the Light for himself without having to think of the Creator’s joy. This made Adam less like the Creator—the force of love and giving—than prior to his receiving the Light. This is why Adam’s attempt to receive Light for himself is considered a sin: it drives him away from the purpose of creation.

The Kabbalistic term for a “sin” is “breaking.” Thus, Adam ha Rishon broke. Kabbalists explain that Adam’s soul broke into 600,000 pieces. Each piece was a result of Adam’s egoistic attempt, and hence was egoistic, too. An egoistic element is detached from the Creator because it is opposite from Him. This is how our world was created, where the egoistic desires rule and the Creator is hidden from sight by our own egoism.

Adam wasn’t born an egoist; he only discovered his egoism when he tried to use his desires to receive the Light. His intention was to receive in order to bestow, just like the worlds had shown him. But his failure taught him that he was different from them, that he was essentially egoistic and had to be corrected before he could receive, as did the worlds.

The shattering of Adam’s soul into many pieces was actually a good thing. In breaking, the great egoistic desire was split into many little pieces of smaller desires, which are easier to correct. Each such desire exists within each of us. When everyone in the world corrects their own share of Adam’s soul, the whole of humanity will be corrected, one soul, receiving in order to bestow, at one with the Creator, and enjoying all the Light that He intended to give us in the Thought of Creation.

In the beginning of Chapter Three, we wrote that before anything was created, there was the Thought of Creation. This Thought created Phases One through Four of the will to receive, which created the worlds Adam Kadmon through Assiya, which then created the soul of Adam ha Rishon, which broke into the myriad souls we have today.

It’s very important to remember this order of creation because it reminds us that things evolve from above downward, from spiritual to corporeal, and not the other way around. In practical terms, it means that our world is created and governed by the spiritual worlds.

Moreover, there is not a single event in our world that doesn’t happen above first. And the only difference between our world and the spiritual worlds is that events in the spiritual worlds reflect altruistic intentions, and events in our world reflect egoistic intentions.

Because of this cascading structure of the worlds, our world is called the “world of consequences” of spiritual processes and occurrences. Whatever we do here has no impact of any kind on the spiritual worlds. Therefore, if we want to change anything in our world, we must first climb to the spiritual worlds, the “control room” of our world, and affect our world from there.

Just as it happens in the spiritual worlds, everything in our world evolves along the same five stages from Zero to Four. Figure 7 focuses on the part of Malchut’s desires that could not receive in order to bestow, and hence remained dark. The smallest desires create the still level of Creation, and the stronger the desires become, so does their activity level: from vegetative to animate to speaking, and finally, to human.

However, it is important to remember that the desires in Figure 7 are inactive. They are not receiving Light, so they are doing no harm. They become active only when Adam tries to use them to receive Light. This is when their egoistic nature surfaces, and this is when they break. Hence, as long as they are inactive, they are still considered spiritual desires, because there is no active egoism to separate them from the Creator’s quality of giving. They become detached from Him only when they are activated.

The still, vegetative, animate, speaking, and spiritual levels in our world are actually manifestations of desires that originate in the Upper World. They become physical only when they are activated in the wrong way—egoistically. If we could activate them in the right way, in order to please the Creator, we could use them to receive Light. This is the essence of the correction that we need to make here in this world.

Also, recall that we said that the still level is made of the smallest desires, and vegetative of stronger ones and so on through the strongest desire—the spiritual level. So when the desires break and begin to work selfishly, the weaker desires are the least broken, and the strongest desires suffer the worst shattering. Accordingly, the still (inanimate, mineral) level in our world is the least broken (egoistic), plants are more egoistic, animals are more egoistic than plants, and humans are the most egoistic of all.

Because spiritual desires are divided into stronger and weaker, our world is built like a pyramid. The weakest desires are the least egoistic and form the base level of Creation, the still (Figure 8). Above these, and relying on them, is the vegetative level. In a sense, the vegetative is exploiting the still because they are nourished by minerals and water, which belong to the still level of our world.

Next in line is the animate level, which nurtures mostly on plants, “exploiting” them for their sustenance. Highest on the scale is the speaking (human) level, which feeds on both plants and animals, and some minerals.

The spiritual level isn’t a separate level in its physical manifestation. Rather, it is a distinct level of development, a state where one’s soul yearns to return to its root in the Upper Worlds, where it was in direct contact with the Creator. And here lies the uniqueness of the spiritual level: while it is the greatest, most egoistic desire, it is also the only level that really wants to bond with the Creator, the altruistic force of life. This is why the spiritual level in us is the one that makes us feel the lowest, but is also the key to our transformation from egoism to altruism.

In his “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” one of his introductions to the Sulam commentary on The Book of Zohar, Baal HaSulam explains the difference between spirituality and corporeality. He says that anything that has an aim to bestow, like the Creator, is spiritual, and anything that has an aim to receive, opposite from the Creator, is corporeal. Prior to Adam’s breaking, there was no such thing as an active aim to receive. Hence, his breaking also marks the first appearance of physical reality.

In Chapter Three, we said that the four-phase pattern continues through the whole of Creation. Our world is no exception to the rule. Hence, the first substance to appear was the still, or inanimate substance, representing the smallest level of desires.

Following the still, came vegetation, then animals, representing the animate level of desires, and finally humans—the physical manifestation of the speaking level. The last desire to appear was the desire for spirituality, for the Creator. As we’ve explained in the previous section, this last desire is both the most powerful, and the only one that can achieve the Creator (altruism).

Of course, things didn’t go quite as quickly as we just described them. First appeared the minerals, billions of trillions of tons of minerals, which gradually formed the galaxies, stars, and planets. Then, lost in these trillions of tons of matter, there appeared a tiny speck called “Planet Earth.” And on this Earth appeared the vegetative level. Naturally, the vegetation on Earth is infinitely smaller in mass than that of the still matter on Earth, all the more so compared to the quantity of inanimate matter in the whole universe. The animate, which appeared after the vegetative, has a tiny mass, even compared to the vegetative. The speaking, of course, the last to appear, has the least mass of all.

The spiritual level appeared just “recently.” Since we are speaking of geological times here, when we say recently, we mean that it emerged only a few thousand years ago.

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The full size of Creation is incomprehensible. If we look at the pyramid of Creation (Figure 8) and think of the proportions between every two adjacent levels, we will begin to understand just how recent the desire for spirituality really is. If we “compress” the time the universe has existed—approximately fifteen billion years—into a single day of twenty-four hours, the desire for spirituality appeared 0.0288 seconds ago. In geological terms, this is now.

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Thus, on the one hand, the higher the desire, the rarer (and younger) it is. On the other hand, the existence of a spiritual level above the human level indicates that we haven’t completed our evolution. Evolution is as dynamic as ever, but because we are the last level to appear, we naturally think we are the top level. We may be at the top level, but we are not at the final level. We are only at the last of the levels that have already emerged.

The final level will use our bodies as hosts, but will consist of entirely new ways of thinking, feeling and being. In this level, we will perceive reality very differently than we do today. It is already evolving within us, and it is called “the spiritual level.”

No physical changes or new species will be required, just a transformation in our perception of the world. This is why the next phase in evolution is so elusive; it is within us. This phase will evolve whether or not we are aware of it. However, with awareness and active participation, we can rush its emergence and make it much more fascinating and enjoyable. The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches how we can become aware of the spiritual level within us, and participate in its evolvement in the most effective and beneficial way for us. It was for this purpose that Kabbalah was created.

As Above, So Below

If we draw a parallel between the earthly phases and the four basic phases of Light, the still era corresponds to the Root Phase, the vegetative era corresponds to Phase One, the animate era to Phase Two, the speaking era to Phase Three, and the spiritual era to Phase Four.

Planet Earth’s scorching youth lasted several billion years. As it cooled, vegetative life appeared and reigned over the planet for many more millions of years. But just as the mass of vegetation is much less than that of the still, the vegetative period was much shorter than Earth’s inanimate period.

Following the completion of the vegetative phase, the animate period arrived. As with the previous two degrees, the animate era was much shorter than the vegetative era, matching the proportion between the vegetative and animate masses.

The human phase, which corresponds to the speaking level of the pyramid, has only been around for the past forty thousand years or so. When humanity completes its evolution of the fourth (and last) phase, evolution will be complete and humanity will reunite with the Creator.

The Fourth Phase began some five thousand years ago, when the desires for spirituality first appeared. So if you examine the pyramid in Figure 8, you will find that we actually have a very broad-based pyramid here. Each level contains much more substance and lasts much longer than the one above it.

Nevertheless, each degree is totally subjugated and controlled by its adjacent superior. This is why the correction of the entire world depends on the correction of the last and highest degree—the spiritual.

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The Point in the Heart

When Kabbalists write about the heart, they are not referring to the pump in our chests. The heart is the sum of our desires to receive pleasure. When the desire for spirituality appears, Kabbalists call it “the point in the heart.” This point is very important because once it appears it sheds a new light on everything we experience and gives our lives a higher, spiritual meaning. This point in the heart is what eventually leads us to spirituality.

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As in the spiritual world, the name of the person who first experienced this point was Adam. He was Adam ha Rishon (The First Man). The name, Adam, comes from the Hebrew words, Adameh la Elyon—“I will be like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14)—and reflects Adam’s desire to be like the Creator.

These days, at the start of the 21st century, evolution is completing its development of the Fourth Phase—the desire to be like the Creator. This is why more and more people today are looking for spiritual answers to their questions.

When Kabbalists talk about spiritually evolving, they are referring to climbing up the spiritual ladder. This is why Kabbalist Yehuda Ashlag named his commentary on The Book of Zohar, Perush HaSulam (The Ladder Commentary), for which he was named Baal HaSulam (Owner of the Ladder). But climbing “up the ladder” actually means going “back to the roots.” This is because the roots of our creation, the Upper Worlds, are a part of us. In a sense, we’ve already been there, even though we’re not aware of it. Now we must figure out how to get back there by ourselves, consciously.

The root is our final goal, where we are ultimately heading. But to get there quickly and peacefully we need a great desire for it—a Kli. The desire for spirituality is what characterizes the spiritual level in our evolution.

Just as not all gifted athletes win medals, only those who are both gifted and highly motivated, to achieve spirituality, we need to be very highly motivated. To understand where highly motivated athletes get their motivation, we must look not only at the athletes, but at their environment. In many countries, there are special schools for athletes, where their lives revolve entirely around their sport, and their competitiveness is nurtured.

Similarly, to achieve spirituality, we must create an environment that will encourage us to be more spiritual. Such an environment will make us think that spirituality is the most important thing in life, and that by achieving it, we will be the happiest and most complete people on earth. Our friends will describe how great it is to be spiritual, united with the Creator, just as athletes’ friends talk to them about winning this or that race, and what it feels like to be the first at the finish line etc.. In Kabbalah, we would say that “the medal shines” for athletes with “Surrounding Light.”

Therefore, to want spirituality, we need to acquire the kind of Surrounding Light that will make us want spiritual pleasures. The more of this Light we gather, the faster we will progress. Wanting spirituality is called “raising MAN,” and we can use the same technique that athletes use to increase the desire for a medal—picture it, talk about it, read about it, think about it, and do whatever we can to focus on it. But the most powerful means to increase any desire is still our social environment.

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Is there a difference between “Surrounding Light” and just “Light”?

The different titles, “Surrounding Light” and “Light,” relate to two functions of the same Light. Light that is not considered Surrounding is what we experience as pleasure, while Surrounding Light is the Light that builds our Kli, the place where the Light will finally enter. Both are actually one Light, but when we experience it as correcting and building, we call it “Surrounding Light.” When we feel it as pure pleasure, we call it “Light.”

In his “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Baal HaSulam explains that until we develop a Kli, we do not receive any Light. But the Light is there, surrounding our souls, and gradually builds our Kli by increasing our desire for it.

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We will talk about the environment more in Chapter Six, but for now, let’s think of it in the following way: If everyone around me wants and talks about the same thing, and there’s only one thing that’s “in,” I’m bound to want it. The more I want something, the greater are my efforts to obtain it, the more my Kli grows, and the greater the Surrounding Light I will draw.

The growing Kli encourages me to develop new means to get what I want, thus progressing faster toward my goal. The equation is simple and straightforward: The bigger the Kli, the greater the Light; the greater the Light, the quicker the correction and the reception of the Light inside the Kli.

We still need to understand how the Surrounding Light builds our Kli and why it is called “Light” to begin with. But to understand all that, we must first understand the concept of Reshimot.

Recall that the spiritual worlds and the soul of Adam ha Rishon evolved in a certain order. In the worlds, it was Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. In Adam ha Rishon, the evolution was named after the kind of desire that emerged—still, vegetative, animate, speaking, and spiritual.

Just as we don’t forget our childhood, but rely on the past during our present experiences, each completed step in the evolutionary process is not lost, but is registered in our unconscious “spiritual memory.” In other words, within us lies the entire history of our spiritual evolution, from the time we were one with the Thought of Creation to this day. Going up the spiritual ladder simply means remembering the states we’ve already experienced.

These memories are aptly named Reshimot (records), and each Reshimo stands for a specific spiritual state. Because our spiritual evolution unfolded in a specific order, the Reshimot surface within us in just that order. In other words, our future states are already determined, and we are not creating anything new, just remembering and re-experiencing events that already happened to us. The one thing we can determine, which we will discuss at length in the following chapters, is how fast we can climb the ladder. The harder we work at climbing it, the faster these states will change and the faster we will spiritually progress.

Each Reshimo is completed when we have fully experienced it, and like a chain, when one Reshimo ends, the next Reshimo emerges. The Reshimo we are experiencing now (our present reality) is actually an offspring of the Reshimo that will appear next (my adjacent future state). But because we are going back up the ladder, the present Reshimo is attached to its original creator, its “parent Reshimo,” if you will, and awakens it. Thus, we should never expect to end our present state and rest, because when one state is over, it will necessarily lead to the next in line until we complete our correction. Then we will rest in a state of eternal bliss.

Our efforts to become altruistic (spiritual) bring us closer to our corrected state because the greater Light that we draw awakens the Reshimot more quickly. And since those Reshimot are records of higher spiritual experiences, the sensations they create in us are more spiritual, too.

When that happens, we begin to vaguely sense the connectedness, unity, and love that exist in that state, much like a distant, faint light. The more we try to reach it, the closer we come to it and the brighter it shines. Moreover, the stronger the Light, the stronger is our desire for it. Thus, the Light builds our Kli, our desire for spirituality.

Now we also see that the name, “Surrounding Light,” perfectly describes how we sense it. As long as we haven’t reached it, we see it as external, attracting us with its blinding promise of bliss.

Every time the Light builds a big enough Kli for us to step to the next level, the next Reshimo comes along and a new desire emerges in us. We don’t know why our desires change because they’re always parts of Reshimot from a higher degree than our current level, even when they don’t seem to be.

Just as our present Reshimo surfaced and brought us to our present state, the new desire that approaches comes from a new Reshimo, which will produce a new state. At the moment, we call that new Reshimo “our future.” However, in a little while, when that Reshimo has emerged in its fullest, it will be our present, just as our current Reshimo is our present. This is how we continue our climb up the ladder. It is a spiral of Reshimot and ascents that end at the purpose of Creation—the root of our souls, when we are equal and united with the Creator.

Before we focus on the desire for spirituality, let’s see what Kabbalah has to say about our individual desires: The only difference between people is in the way they want to experience pleasure. Pleasure in itself, however, is amorphous, intangible. When we cover it with different “dresses,” or “coatings,” it creates an illusion that there are different kinds of pleasure, when in fact there are simply many kinds of coatings.

The fact that pleasure is essentially spiritual explains why we have an unconscious craving to replace the superficial coatings of the pleasure with the desire to feel it in its pure form: the Creator’s Light.

And because we’re unaware that the difference between people is in the coatings of pleasure they wish for, we judge them according to the coatings they prefer. We consider certain coatings of pleasure legitimate, such as love of children, while others, such as drugs, are considered unacceptable. When we feel an unacceptable coating for pleasure emerging in us, we are forced to conceal our desire for that coating. However, concealing a desire doesn’t make it go away, and certainly doesn’t correct it.

As we’ve explained above, the lower part of Phase Four is the substance of the soul of Adam ha Rishon (see Figure 6). Just as the worlds are built according to the growing desires, Adam’s soul (humanity) evolved through five phases: Zero (still) through Four (spiritual).

When each phase arises, humanity experiences it to the fullest until it exhausts itself. Then, the next level of desire appears according to the sequence of Reshimot embedded in us. Until today, we had already experienced all the Reshimot of all the desires from Still to Speaking. All that’s left for the evolution of humanity to be complete is to experience the spiritual desires to the fullest. Then, our unity with the Creator will be achieved.

Actually, the appearance of desires at the fifth level—the spiritual—began back in the 16th century, as was described by the Holy Ari. But today we are witnessing the appearance of the most intense kind within the fifth level—the spiritual within the spiritual. Moreover, we are witnessing its appearance in huge numbers, with millions of people the world over seeking spiritual answers to their questions.

Because the Reshimot that surface today are of greater desires for spirituality than ever before, the primary questions people are asking are about their origins, their roots! Although most of these seekers have a roof over their heads and sufficient income to support themselves and their families, they need to know where they came from, by whose plan, and for what purpose. When they are not satisfied with the answers religions offer, they seek them in other disciplines and teachings.

Phase Four – the Phase of Conscious Evolution

The main difference between Phase Four and all other phases is that in this phase, we must consciously evolve. In previous phases, it was always Nature that compelled us to move from one phase to the next. It did this by pressuring us enough to feel uncomfortable and seek to change our present state. This is how Nature develops all of its parts: human, animate, vegetative, and even inanimate.

Our basic desire is passive. This is because we are meant to be receivers of pleasure, not givers of it (except in our intention). Hence, we only move from one state to the next when pressure becomes intolerable. Otherwise, we prefer to stay motionless. The logic is simple: If I am fine where I am, why move?

But Nature has a different plan in store for us. Instead of allowing us to remain complacent in our present state, it wants us to evolve until we reach its own level, the level of the Creator. This, after all, is the purpose of Creation.

So we have two options: we can choose to evolve