December 7, 2014 at 5:50 pm · Filed under Articles, Books
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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March 22, 2014 at 10:03 am · Filed under Articles, Books
The wisdom of Kabbalah explains, that initially a single desire to receive was created, which as a result of the influence of the creating pure, bestowing force, evolved through four stages, until a raw desire is formed, which senses its total opposition to its source.
As a result of this unpleasant sensation of total opposition the desire restricts itself then builds a “self-control” structure, with a Rosh (head), with a single purpose, to direct its future development in a way of achieving full similarity with the source.
As soon add this “self-control” structure, called “the Partzuf,” is born, the system of “Creation,” begins to sort out the “unemployed” (non-similar, unable to bestow) desires on its waiting list, placing the weakest, easiest to handle desires at the top of the list, and the most intense, unruly ones at the bottom. Creation divides these desires into four categories, similar to the four stages in the evolution of desires. It refers to each category as an Olam (world), from the Hebrew word Haalama (concealment), since these desires must be kept separated and concealed from the lights until they can be operated correctly—with the aim to bestow. Thus, the desires with qualities most similar to Stage One are called “the world of Atzilut,” those most similar to Stage Two form “the world of Beria,” with those most similar to Stage Three forming “the world of Yetzira,” and those most similar to Stage Four becoming “the world of Assiya” (see diagram). For short, they are called “ABYA.”
When Kabbalists describe the spiritual realm—where desires work with the aim to bestow—they usually divide it into worlds and describe what happens in them (how desires actually receive). Therefore, they often refer to everything that precedes the worlds of ABYA as a world as well, and call it “the world of AK” (Adam Kadmon—the primordial man). In a way, the world of AK parallels the Root Stage, or Stage Zero, in the evolution of desires.
Note that our world is not mentioned among the spiritual worlds. Because our world is based on egoism, and the worlds in Kabbalah reflect levels of bestowal, our world is not considered part of the spiritual (with the aim to bestow) system.
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