It's All About Pleasure

We all want to enjoy, to receive pleasure. For one, a juicy piece of steak is the ultimate pleasure, for another, it is winning a game of checkers, or the victory of one’s favorite sports team. You want to win the lottery, while your friend will be happy only when she loses those extra five pounds she’s gained lately. Although we enjoy different things, we all share the need to fulfill the need for pleasure.

Elusive Delights

There is only one problem with this “pleasure issue”: if we honestly examine our lives, we will discover that all that remains of everything we have done so far are memories. We chase pleasures that seem to cross our path, but as soon as we obtain them, they slip between our fingers.

When we are in kindergarten, we want to be in school. We think of it as such a fun place to be, where older kids “have a great time” and learn new and exciting things. But once we get to school, we can’t wait to get to high school. At high school, the new craze is college, and in college, it is a successful career. The next phase always seems better and more appealing. But is it really so?

And there is another issue: Once we get what we want, the pleasure slips between our fingers and leaves us as thirsty as wanderers in the desert, dreaming of a glass of water. And even if we find water, we tremendously enjoy the first sip, but the more we drink, the less we enjoy. In the end, we even forget that we were ever thirsty. In short, we spend our whole lives chasing phantoms of delights. And even when we catch a phantom, it takes no more than a minute for it to slip away once more.

Five Degrees to Desires

Kabbalists discovered that there are five kinds of desires within us, arranged in order of intensity and complexity, according to the phases of their evolution:

• The first, and most basic desire, is the desire for food, health, sex, and family. These are necessary desires for our survival.

• The second phase in the evolution of the desires is the aspiration for wealth. We think that money guarantees survival and a good quality of life.

• The third phase in the evolution of desires is wanting honor and power. We wish to control others and ourselves, as well.

• In the fourth phase appears the desire for knowledge. We think that having knowledge will make us happy.

• But only at Phase Five of the evolution of the desire do we understand that there is something higher than our perception, which conducts our lives and that it is with this something that we need to connect.

The need for food and sex are defined as physical desires, and exist in animals as well. Even when a person lives alone on a secluded island, he or she will still need food, health, and to satisfy sexual needs.

Desires for wealth, honor, and power, however, are considered human desires. These desires evolve in us as part of our participation in the human society, and we satisfy them only through our contacts with other people.

Yet, when the fifth desire awakens, we have no clue as to how to satisfy it. Kabbalists call this desire, which aims higher than this world, “the point in the heart.”

The Point in the Heart

Kabbalists refer to the sum of our desires as “the heart,” and to the desire for the higher, spiritual realm, as “the point in the heart.” This desire evokes a sensation of meaninglessness and creates an inherent need to search for a purpose in our lives. A person whose point in the heart awakened suddenly asks him or herself, “What is the meaning of my life?” And no answer that relates to the material world will answer that question.

You can offer such a person lots of money, honor, power, and knowledge, but a person with a point in the heart will remain frustrated nonetheless. Such a desire stems from a higher degree than the level of this world; hence, the satisfaction of this desire must come from that degree, as well. The wisdom of Kabbalah explains how we can satisfy this desire.

In recent years we have witnessed the awakening of the point in the heart in many people. This is the reason for the current popularity of Kabbalah—people are turning to it to find how they can satisfy this newly awakened desire in them.

Filling the Void

A person whose point in the heart awakened seeks spiritual pleasures, which Kabbalists describe as complete and eternal fulfillment and satisfaction. As we have said above, we can satisfy the desires for our earthly and human needs with fulfillments we already know, but when the desire for spirituality awakens, we no longer know how to soothe it.

Moreover, many people are frustrated because they have not yet realized that the desire for spirituality has awakened in them. They are unaware that this is the reason for their dissatisfaction and discontentment. The inability to fulfill the desire for spirituality evokes sensations of helplessness, desperation, frustration and purposelessness of life. This is the main reason for the ongoing increase in drug and alcohol abuse, as well as other means of escape from reality.

As children, many people ask themselves, “What am I living for?” But as the years go by, we are inundated by desires and temptations that divert us from this question, and the need to find a genuine answer withers away.

Nevertheless, at some point, the point in the heart awakens, and with it the questions. Those who insist on finding the answers come to Kabbalah, where they find spiritual fulfillment, and satisfy the need in their point in their heart. Fulfilling the spiritual desire imparts a sensation beyond the physical existence. Hence, a person connected to the spiritual, experiences life as eternal and whole. This is such a powerful sensation that when one’s physical body expires, he or she does not experience separation from life, as that person has already sympathized with the highest fulfillment that exists—the point in the heart.