The process of the development and birth of the soul can be favorably compared to the same process that occurs in human beings. The soul is born out of a spiritual seed, which is developed by the Light that descends on a person when studying Kabbalah. The point in the heart then begins to inflate and expand under the influence of that Light, and finally evolves into ten complete attributes Kabbalah calls Sefirot; the complete structure of the soul is called a Partzuf, or a Guf (body) of a soul. The Upper Light (the sensation of the Creator by the creature) is drawn into those ten attributes, or Sefirot. This is how a person begins to feel the spiritual world, the Upper One, the Creator.
Sefirot as Vessels of Perception
Everyone is born into this world with the same five senses: seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling. Since we all have the same senses, we all see this corporeal world in the same way. But what are we really feeling through these senses? We are feeling our desire to enjoy, the desire for pleasure. This desire manifests in all five senses at once and is experienced on five different levels:
1. Animate pleasures from sex, family and food.
2. Pleasure from wealth and social status.
3. Pleasure from power (control) and fame.
4. Pleasure from knowledge.
5. Pleasure from the Creator.
Sefirot are attributes that are given to the creature, through which to feel the Creator. That is why the Sefirot express supremacy. They are attributes that the Creator wants His creatures to attain in order for them to feel Him. The entire universe is comprised of ten Sefirot, each comprised of ten inner Sefirot, and so on, indefinitely. For that reason, each particle in the universe will always be comprised of ten parts, or Sefirot. But the proportions between the parts are always unique to that particle.
Think for a moment about how we get to know someone. Obviously, at first we are only in contact with a person visually. But as we get to know them, their ways and inner attributes, we discover what is behind that outer body, what their inner attributes are. The external part of a person is only needed for the purpose of providing a sort of outer dressing for those inner attributes.
Attaining Wholeness by Discovering the Creator
We can say that we truly know a person only after we know all his or her attributes and reactions in varying situations. Kabbalah calls the process of getting to know the Creator, “attaining the Creator.” A person attains the Creator through the Sefirot, meaning through the Creator’s outer appearances and His attributes. Through the Sefirot we will ultimately come to know reality, which is all a dressing for the Creator, just as our bodies are a dressing for our souls.
The Creator works inside us, in our souls. So if we learn to attain the Creator, we do it by discovering His actions in our soul. In other words, we attain the Creator by the action of the Light on our point in the heart, the desire to reveal the Creator. That point is not empty, although it is felt that way, but rather is filled with goodness. However, in order to feel it, we need to experience every emotion, and only then do we learn to feel the Light as it enters a specific point in the soul.
This brings a very special feeling that can only be described as “wholeness.”
“What are Sefirot?” is based on the book, Wondrous Wisdom: Everyone’s Guide to the Study of Authentic Kabbalah by Michael R. Kellogg.
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