Revealed and Concealed
The difference between the revealed and the concealed in this world and the spiritual world is only with respect to us. Everything we still do not know—in this world, as well—is called “concealed.” If what is unknown becomes known, it becomes revealed. Thus, at any given moment we are in both the revealed and the concealed. The difference between this world and the spiritual world is in the way we acquire forms and patterns of perceiving reality.
The spiritual world is a reality where the patterns to perceive it do not come naturally, from within us or from the environment. Because the spiritual reality abides by opposite laws than our natural laws, where we presently exist, the spiritual world requires that we invert our attitudes. But where can we find the “opposite” strength to build “opposite forms”? If we are naturally built to build egoistic forms, how will we be able to build within us any altruistic forms and perceive the altruistic reality?
Such an inversion requires a special process, called Segula (merit). Segula refers to an indirect process that traverses the Upper System, and then returns to the individual. Using Kabbalah studies, one draws nearer to the Upper, altruistic Thought. This Thought does not act upon the will to receive, or upon the ego, but rather on the altruistic point—the point in the heart.
The similarity of nature between the point in the heart and the Upper Thought creates a connection between them, and they possess the same nature. The Upper Thought acts upon the point and molds it into various patterns, which we perceive as seeming to exist outside of us, in the spiritual realm.
Actually, these Forms do not exist outside of us at all, but within us. As with the illusion that everything we see in this world is outside us, so is the case in the spiritual world. However, when we acquire more spiritual Forms, we come to understand and to know the Thought that develops and builds these Forms within us.
During the process of coming to know this Thought, we build internal Forms that become increasingly similar to the Upper Thought. In so doing, we equalize ourselves with this Thought until it becomes the “self” of that person, after which one rises to the level where this Thought originated.
Inverted World
The Upper Force creates the entire picture of reality within us—our nature, character, health, wishes and thoughts, and even our friends, country, and the world we live in. All this is prepared by the Upper Force. Everything that happens within us and around us is intended to bring us to a single resolution: to bond with this force.
But if this is how things are, we should ask, “How could this so-called benevolent Upper Force create such a harsh and bitter reality as we see before us?” In that regard, Kabbalists said, “He who charges others, charges with his own fault.” The world picture is completely personal and entirely affected by the level of correction of one’s attributes.
In the article, Concealment and Disclosure of the Face, Baal HaSulam expounds on the meaning of changing one’s perspective, changing one’s tools of perception. In this article, Baal HaSulam argues that perceiving phenomena from the perspective of the correction is opposite to perceiving phenomena from the perspective of the corruption. Through egoistic vessels, it seems as though egoists succeed; through altruistic vessels, they seem to be suffering. But did these people actually change? Did they fall from riches to rags, from bliss to anguish? Moreover, can our correction change the state of those we observe?
One who senses the spiritual reality and observes the corporeal reality, perceives its events and incidents differently than one who does not sense spirituality. Such a person sees only how the egoistic actions performed in our world are untruthful, noxious, and create distance between their doers and the Upper Force.
The more enjoyable and fulfilling a phenomenon is thought to be (in egoistic vessels), the farther it is from the nature of the Upper Force in the eyes of one who feels the spiritual reality. In such a state, that person will perceive it as more afflictive since it distances that individual from the Upper Force and the quality of bestowal.
Contradictory Phenomena
It seems hard to believe that researchers would agree to the statement that “we create the world-picture before our eyes.” This is because that would mean that there is nothing more to research. and researchers are customarily regarded as people who aspire to change the world. But changing the world is impossible using the traditional methods of research. At this point, Kabbalah provides researchers with tools that will enable them to research themselves, and thus change the world.
In other words, Kabbalah will assist an honest researcher to achieve what he or she wanted from the beginning—to change the world. However, the change will be internal, not external. The wisdom of Kabbalah will enable science and human perception to evolve into the next phase, beyond time, space, and motion. In that state, all the phenomena that today appear contradictory to researchers will merge.
Now we can also understand how our desires gradually evolve. Having developed from desires to wealth to desires for honor and domination, and finally to the desire for knowledge, it is now time for the desire for spirituality, the desire that induces our exposure of the wisdom of Kabbalah.
A scientist who studies the wisdom of Kabbalah is acquainted with the foundation of Creation. Such a scientist will be surprised to discover how tightly matters are connected to the rules discovered in the material world. Subsequently, this congruence between spiritual laws and physical laws will help the researcher to resolve problems in every field of contemporary life.
In ecology, psychology, social or political science, in every field of science we are faced with the absence of the “right formulae.” Things did not use to be so complex. In Newton’s time, for example, discovering only a few formulae sufficed to explain everything. But today we have climbed to a new level of research in matter; at this level, we lack the formula that explains the general conduct of matters.
If science claims to engage in humans and the world they live in, Kabbalah states that in all our fields of research, we actually research ourselves, not the world around us. In physics, chemistry, physiology, ecology, or any other science, we research not the outside world, but our inner world, our inner vessels. Modern science is discovering that traditional research has exhausted itself. All that is needed now is to see that the entire world is actually within us.
A New Science
The realities we cannot see today, illiteracy of the affect of thoughts, inability to get along with society and with the environment, are all consequences of the erroneous premise that the world exists outside of us. This is why we are unable to formulate clear, sustainable rules that provide secure and safe sustenance. We must understand that we judge everything from within; if researchers agree to that, it will mark the beginning of the new science.
The new science will facilitate a clear understanding of the world we live in and make a proper connection to reality. To bring the method of correction to humanity, we must adopt the viewpoint that we exist within ourselves. Admittedly, changing attitudes towards the perception of reality is no small matter, especially with such fundamental change as the one we face today. In the past, when new methods came about they always required time to be accepted.
Hardest of all is the transition to the new perception, because according to the new perception, nothing exists but the perceiving individual. All former perceptions argued that there is something outside us with which we connect, whether in thought or in action. The argument that the human being is the Creator’s sole creation, and that, besides the perceiving individual, there is only the Upper Light, is difficult to comprehend.
The understanding that all we feel are internal phenomena is not a psychological switch. Rather, it is a fundamental change that forces us to delve within. One cannot merely agree with the new perception, but must cultivate and improve one’s inner qualities to finally equalize their form with the Upper Light on the outside. When one’s qualities change and are no longer opposite from the Creator’s qualities, one begins to discover the Creator. In that state, one becomes “transparent” with respect to the Upper Light, and the human matter—the will to receive—no longer acts as a partition before the Light.
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Kabbalah explains that our tools of perception are comprised of five parts; three of these parts are called “internal vessels” and the other two are called “external vessels.” With the internal vessels we feel ourselves, and with external vessels we feel our surrounding world. The external vessels create the sensation of an external reality because they are incomplete vessels, insufficiently developed.
When one corrects one’s vessels (including the external vessels) in the fullest measure, the external world, too, will be felt as internal. Thus, the outside world will disappear and will become the simple Light that fills the whole reality. Since the correcting person has equalized with the Upper Light in every quality by annulling all the differences between them, that person is now in reciprocal perception with the Upper Light. This state is called Dvekut (adhesion), a state where one is totally integrated in the Upper Light.
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The difference discovered by quantum physics between the behavior of matter as a particle and its behavior as a wave is tantamount to the gap between matter—the will to receive—and the Light. Through Kabbalah, humanity will come to know the purpose for which matter is required to arrive, namely equivalence of Form between matter and Light.
At that time, there will be no difference, from our perspective, between a wave and a particle, or between Light and matter. We are presently incapable of comparing two contradictory things and situating them under the same roof. Only when one determines that reality is within and that there is nothing without, only if one lets go of the perception of “me” and “outside of me,” will these opposites become as one.