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Soul, screen and delight

We receive spiritual desires directly from above. To fill them we need a special sense called "a screen" (Masach). As soon as man acquires this sense, he starts feeling pleasure through it. The pleasure is called the Supreme Light. It enters our desire to enjoy it through the screen. This desire to enjoy the Supreme Light is called "soul". The light is not felt as the source of pleasure unless man acquires an additional sense capable of picking it up.

All components: the light (pleasure), the screen (means of reception) and the soul (receiver) are in no way connected to our physical body. Hence, it doesn’t matter whether man has a body or not. As soon as man establishes contact with the Supreme Light, he begins to correct himself so as to be filled with it. The gradual likening of one’s properties to the light and the consecutive filling with it is called spiritual ascent.

The body is only a means for the spiritual advancement in this exciting process; otherwise it is of no interest because a small pleasure cannot be felt at all in comparison with a great delight: the greater delight suppresses it. Therefore, although a Kabbalist lives in the same world as we do, he is actually already in the upper world.

Since we cannot feel his world, all his sensations are beyond our perception, on the other side of Machsom.

When man associates himself with his soul and not with his physical body, he experiences the death of this body as a change of clothes. The sensations he acquired in this world do not disappear, and the world he lives in stays with him after his body dies. Everyone living on earth can and must complete their way in accordance with the Creator’s plan.

What data is Kabbalah based on?

Kabbalah uses only precise, experience-tested data. No theories or assumptions are taken into consideration. Everything Kabbalah is based on has been received from people who personally attained the spiritual sensations through the point in heart, through the soul. They tested, measured and described their sensations. The combined results of their research form the science of Kabbalah.

As in any other science, Kabbalah operates with precise mathematical, physical and graphical data (diagrams and tables). Instead of dealing with feelings, Kabbalists use vectors, forces of gravitation and suppression of desires: their correlations are numerically measured; desires and their filling are accurately defined. This is the means by which Kabbalists describe their sensations of Supernal Providence.

In our world we can measure neither man’s inner efforts, nor his subjective sensations, to all the more accurately compare perceptions and impressions of two different people. One can only sympathize with psychologists and psychiatrists, who are totally unable to operate with the parameters of man’s soul.

The history and the language of Kabbalah

Everything that we know about the upper world even before we discover it by ourselves was written by people who personally attained it. They described their method, their sensations, conclusions and offered recommendations so that we could follow in their path. Kabbalistic books are the accounts of their journeys in the upper world.

Everyone begins the attainment of the Supreme governing Force by asking the question about the point of his life, sufferings, and the purpose of the universe, destiny and chance. A deep analysis of these questions leads man to the necessity of revelation of the Supreme Force. The first known Kabbalist described his impressions of the divine revelation around 3700 years ago in the book entitled "Sefer Yetzira". He used the language of Kabbalah in his book, which is still studied by Kabbalists today.

The languages of narrative and prophecy are also used for the description of the spiritual domain. It makes no difference to a Kabbalist which language a book about the Creator is written. In whichever language, like a musician who hears music while looking at the notes, a Kabbalist feels what the author describes in a Kabbalistic text.

Material and spiritual senses

We are born with five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, through which we receive some information from outside. Our brain processes this information and produces a combined picture of the surrounding world. These sensations are called "this world" or "my world". Precisely speaking, we don’t know what exists around us. We just attribute our reaction to some outside influence.

Our ear is designed so that a membrane separates between our inner part and the outer reality. This membrane may be more or less sensitive, healthy or damaged. Accordingly, we define a sound as strong, weak, high-pitched, low-pitched or even imperceptible. The quality of the sound I hear depends not on what it is like on the outside; it is determined by the parameters of my sense, i.e. by my inner qualities. What I feel is not the outer fluctuations, but my sensor’s reaction to them. In fact, I perceive something inside and call it an outside sound.

The same refers to the rest of our senses.

It turns out that we are an absolutely closed system: each of us feels only his inner reactions to an outside unknown influence. We can never perceive something that happens outside of us objectively. Whatever we feel in our senses is processed by our brain and the information is presented in a certain way. Outside of our senses we have no idea what this information is like. We are locked inside ourselves.

What can the additional consciously acquired sense provide me with? It allows for receiving information not via my natural five senses into my egoistic desires (interpreting everything in terms of personal profit, i.e. being biased), but directly and impartially. This way I can achieve a genuine attainment of the absolute and objective universe.

This is what Kabbalah allows us to do. Like any other science, Kabbalah is characterized by repeatability of experience, registered data etc. Kabbalah is a science and has nothing to do with religion. Religions do not teach Kabbalah, because it reveals to man the true universe, where the Supreme governing Force desires only one thing — to make man equal to itself.

Gematria of the soul

If two Kabbalists read one and the same description of the upper world, they will perceive a certain picture. But how will they be able to compare their sensations? Each feels them according to the inner properties of his soul.

If one Kabbalist has a larger screen than the other and his spiritual level is higher, the pictures he can see will definitely be different. If you are in the 5^th grade and I am in the 10^th, you naturally understand more than I do.

The quality of the soul is a combination of all of its properties. Man in our world has an entire set of properties: greed, jealousy, mercy etc., but everyone has them in a different proportion. By studying Kabbalah one can discover the desires of the soul, describe and formulate its structure.

The Creator created a single desire — the soul called "Adam". 600.000 fixed structures, separate souls can be singled out in it. Each soul (both common and individual) includes 620 inner parts, desires. Their combination determines the soul structure.

Each of these soul structures receives its name according to the principal, distinctive quality. It has a numerical value called Gematria. Gematria of combined properties is expressed by letters, i.e. the Hebrew letters are used instead of numbers. In order to define the souls numerically, they are given names, since originally there were no numbers in Hebrew (they are designated instead by letters).

Then absolute attainment is achieved

As a result becoming corrected, all souls merge into one common soul and start interrelating within a unified system. This common soul construction binds all individual souls together, so that ultimately each of them feels what all the others feel. This is the achievement of absolute attainment. Such a state is called the "Final Correction", after which the soul, receiving the light from above ascends to the Source — the Creator, becoming equal to Him.

All souls are obliged to achieve this state not later than 6000 thousand years from the point of "the creation of the world" — when the aspiration to the upper world awakened in man for the first time. The year 2005 coincides with 5765 from "the creation of the world". We have a little more than two hundred years left, but our efforts may considerably shorten that period.

Why is Kabbalah a science about reception of pleasure?

In Kabbalah we understand pleasure as filling in all its manifestations: material, moral, intellectual or physical. Furthermore, here we speak of delight (filling), which is absolute, eternal, perfect and infinite.

Delight is felt only when a very strong desire is present — provided there is a crystal-clear desire for something, which is unavailable. The received pleasure instantly extinguishes desire which in turn reduces pleasure. The greatest delight is felt only during the first contact of the desire with the desired, the way the first bit of food feels in a hungry man’s mouth. Then hunger subsides, the desire disappears and satiation sets in. The food stops bringing the delight that was felt at the beginning of the meal. Gourmets leave the most delicious dishes for the end of a feast, because greater delight compensates for the lack of desire.

If we start researching the various kinds of pleasure we receive from knowledge, power, riches, sex and food, we’ll notice that all of them diminish upon reception of the desired. Oftentimes man works for years to get what he wants, but having received the object, stops enjoying it.

It is the disappearance of the sensation of pleasure forces us to look for new delights. Advertising, fashion etc. supply us with new desires, and we get carried away by the constant pursuit of anticipated pleasure. Once the desired is received, we feel compelled to seek new enjoyment. This process is endless. Hence, man can never really be delighted. He is constantly moving.

Kabbalah teaches man how to receive non-vanishing pleasures: eternal, absolute and perfect, revealed as permanent peace and delight. Hence, this method is called "Hochmat HaKabbalah" (the science of reception). It was given to us by the Creator so that our enormous desires would be immediately satisfied and then new desires would emerge, be fulfilled and so on. The absence of a gap between a desire and its filling would allow us to enjoy never-ending peace and delight.

How can such desire be created? It does not exist in our world. Hence, the soul is opposite to our entire world. It differs from this world by its property of altruism called "a screen" in Kabbalah. The process of acquiring a screen is the subject of Kabbalah studies.

We speak about a strictly practical approach, about mastering a special method. It can be accomplished in the process of studying certain Kabbalistic books. For example, the principal Kabbalistic six-volume composition "The Study of Ten Sefirot" is compiled as a regular academic textbook: in each of its 16 parts, on more than 2000 pages the structure of the upper world is expounded in modern language. The part of the books entitled "The Inner Reflection" gives a more detailed explanation of its functioning. The part called "The Meanings of Words" provides questions referring to the meaning of the words used. Finally the part called "Questions and Answers" deals with descriptions and explanations of spiritual phenomena.

We welcome and await all those who find no peace searching for the answers to the questions about the structure and functioning of the universe, about the purpose of life. These are the people who discover the spiritual point in their hearts. It is for them that we created our internet site available in 22 languages - www.kabbalah.info.

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