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The Magical Play of Light: Color in the Spiritual Worlds

How to Become Light Sensitive to the Colors of Connection

Everything that The Zohar and the wisdom of Kabbalah talk about are forms or types of the connection between us. The Creator or the Upper Light has no form; we cannot feel Him. The types and forms of connection of bestowal and love between us by being equivalent to the Light, give the Light form, color, and gradations of qualities. I can distinguish and “pick up” the Light in my own qualities to the extent that they are similar to Him.

Therefore, whatever we read about in The Zohar always refers to types of connection between souls. We reveal the Light according to the forms of connection that manifest between us. Otherwise the Light is impossible to “pick up” (reveal). “There is no Light” if I don’t paint it with different colors. The Light that comes to me should necessarily be colored as the seven colors of the rainbow. Without this, I, as a created being, will not see it; I will be unable to sense or perceive it. [Source: Dr. Michael Laitman, “Through the Seven Colors of the Rainbow to the Simple White Light.”]

 

Worlds of Color According to Your Spiritual Sensitivity

The Zohar ascribes a specific color to each Sefira:

  • White corresponds to Sefirat Hochma;
  • Red corresponds to Sefirat Bina;
  • Green corresponds to Sefirat Tifferet; and
  • Black corresponds to Sefirat Malchut.

Although the Light that fills the Sefirot is colorless, receivers see it with its corresponding hue. Thus, in all five worlds (from Ein Sof to our world), the Light that emanates from the Creator is an absolutely colorless, imperceptible substance. Only after it traverses the worlds and Sefirot as if through color filters do we perceive it as having a certain color and intensity, depending on the level of the soul that receives the Light.

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Priceless Orientation to Keep You On-Course When Sailing Through The Zohar

Memorize the Pivotal Pattern in the Map to Avoid Being Lost at Sea

The Zohar was concealed from the uninitiated from the day of its creation. Now, the conditions have ripened for its disclosure to the public. To make The Zohar accessible to every reader, we must precede it with some explanations.

First, it should be noted that everything described in The Zohar is an order of ten Sefirot: Keter,Hochma, Bina, Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, Malchut, and their combinations. In the same way that languageexpresses any thought with a limited number of letters in the alphabet, so are the combinations of the ten Sefirot sufficient to describe every spiritual action or object.

 

Know Three Boundaries That Serve as Landmarks for the Spiritual Sailor

There are four levels of perception (or attainment) in our world:

1) Matter,
2) Form in Matter,
3) Abstract Form, and
4) Essence.

These four levels of attainment also exist in each of the ten Sefirot.  However, there are three clear boundaries one should always keep in mind, connected to the four levels of perception (or attainment) in our world.  Understanding what these boundaries, or limitations, are will help you appreciate just what it is that The Zohar researches, and what it does not.

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The Secret to Receiving Everything with No Strings Attached

The Supreme Gift and the Stigma Attached

In the beginning of Creation there was one common soul: the Light (pleasure) and the corresponding body (desire), Adam. These were merged in adhesion with the Creator, and therefore received maximum delight. The soul’s nature is merely the will to receive pleasure, and the soul was filled with pleasure in accordance with its desire.

However, once having received pleasure, the soul sensed shame. In our world, everyone who receives a gift or favor feels the same way. Once it had felt a burning shame, corresponding to the received pleasure, the soul discovered that the only way to be rid of it was to stop enjoying the pleasure.

 

How Reception Distances Spirituality and Keeps Us on the Run

The soul that receives for its own sake is opposite from the Giver in its intention and spiritual action. The greater the pleasure it selfishly receives, the greater its opposition to the Creator. The extent of the sense of shame depends on the person’s spiritual development. Only this feeling keeps us constantly within limits and compels us to observe the laws of the society. The same sensation underlies our aspirations for knowledge, wealth, recognition by society, and honor.

 

The Day Reception Overpowered Bestowal & the Explosive Result

However, since the Creator’s desire was to delight the soul, the soul agreed to accept this delight—not for its own sake, but only for the sake of the Creator. However, since the common soul could not instantly overcome its natural desire to enjoy for its own sake (that is how great it was!), it was shattered into myriad fragments (souls). These fragments were easier to work on, to neutralize the selfish will to enjoy.

 

How to Get it Together for Good

What separates spiritual objects is not space, but their spiritual incongruence and dissimilarity of properties. Therefore, the number of souls, meaning separate spiritual objects, determines the number of people in the physical world.

Closeness is determined by how much pleasure the soul receives for the sake of the Creator. The will to receive instinctively acts within us, but our desire to rid ourselves of shame and to enjoy for the Creator’s sake originates within us. Therefore, the desire to rid oneself of shame and to enjoy for the Creator’s sake requires special and continuous effort.
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The Deep Thinker’s Glimpse into How the Spiritual Worlds Are Organized

According to Your Soul’s Desire

In the beginning of Creation there was one common soul:  the Light (pleasure) and the corresponding body (desire), Adam.  These were merged in adhesion with the Creator, and therefore received maximum delight.  The soul’s nature is merely the will to receive pleasure, and the soul was filled with pleasure in accordance with its desire.

 

How to Calculate Your Address in the Spiritual Worlds

Since the difference in desires leads one away from the Creator, different worlds were formed at different levels of remoteness down to our world.  What separates spiritual objects is not space, but their spiritual incongruence and dissimilarity of properties.  Therefore, the number of souls, meaning separate spiritual objects, determines the number of people in the physical world.  Here, every part of the common soul is given a certain period of time (life span) and repeated opportunities (life cycles) for correction.

 

How to Move Up in the Spiritual Worlds

A person is born only with the will to receive pleasure for self.  All our “personal” desires originate from the system of impure forces.  In other words, we are infinitely remote from the Creator, we cannot feel Him, and are therefore considered “spiritually dead.”

However, if, while struggling with oneself, a person acquires the desire to live, think, and act only for the sake of others and the Creator, such soul purification allows one to gradually approach the Creator until completely merging with Him.  And as one comes closer to the Creator, one feels increasing delight.

It is for this soul transformation that our world and all the spiritual worlds (the steps on the path to the Creator) were created.  Merging with the Creator is a task that everyone must accomplish while still living in our world.  Our world is the most opposite point from the Creator—opposite from His properties.

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VaYeshev (And Jacob Sat) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portion

Genesis, 37:1-40:23

This Week’s Torah Portion | December 7 – December 13, 2014 – Kislev 15 – Kislev 21, 5775

In A Nutshell

In the portion, VaYeshev (And Jacob Sat), Jacob dwells in the land of Canaan. The protagonist of this portion is Joseph, Jacob’s youngest son. Joseph was gifted with a knack for prophetic dreams. In one of them, he sees himself ruling over his brothers. He tells them about it and turns their envy against him.

His brothers lead the cattle to Shechem to graze there, and his father sends him to them. On his way he meets a man and asks him about his brothers: “I seek my brethren” (Genesis 37:16). By the time Joseph finds his brothers they are already conspiring to kill him because of their envy. Reuben manages to prevent them from committing the murder and the brothers decide to throw Joseph in a pit, instead, in order to sell him to the Ishmaelites. A convoy of Midianites that passes by takes Joseph with them down to Egypt.

When Joseph arrives in Egypt, he hides in the home of Pharaoh’s captain of the guard, Potiphar. Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce Joseph but he refuses. She avenges by saying that Joseph tried to force himself on her, and he is thrown to the dungeon.

In the pit, Joseph meets Pharaoh’s two officials, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker. He also discloses his gift for prophetic dreams. He predicts that within three weeks the chief cupbearer will be released, and the chief baker will be hanged. Joseph asks the chief cupbearer that upon his release he will go to Pharaoh and tell him that he, Joseph, is jailed for no reason and that he should be released.

 Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

This portion contains a profound spiritual message. It narrates the correction of the soul, which is man’s purpose in life, and the reason why the Torah was given. Initially, the evil inclination appears, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination, I have created for it the Torah as a spice,” for “the light in it reforms it.” “Reforming” means returning to a state of “love your neighbor as yourself.” That is, it brings a person back to the quality of bestowal, similarity with the Creator. This is what we should achieve, as it is written, “Return, Oh Israel unto the Lord your God” (Hosea 14:2).

The Torah demonstrates how the ego, the will to receive, keeps changing until it is corrected. In the example shown in this portion we see how all our qualities connect, then separate, manifesting imbalance among them until they beget more advanced qualities, closer to bestowal.

Jacob is the beginning of the quality of bestowal within us. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are the three patriarchs. Jacob is actually the senior, containing both the desire to receive and the desire to bestow within us, as it is only possible to elicit the middle line using both. The middle line, Jacob, is still not attributed to the level of execution in us, but to the level of decision making.

The expression of Jacob’s execution level is his sons, from Reuben, the eldest, to Joseph, the youngest. And precisely in this hierarchy do the qualities within us hang down. This is how our ego, in all its (still incorrect) forms, is corrected. The one who completes them is Joseph, the righteous. He gathers all the previous qualities into the quality of Yesod (foundation), which is called “the righteous Joseph,” or “a righteous, the foundation of the world” (Proverbs 10:25).

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