We Have Neither Attainment Nor Perception of any Matter
We have no attainment or perception whatsoever in any substance, as all of our five senses are completely unfit for it. The sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch offer the scrutinizing mind mere abstract forms of “incidents” of the essence, formulating through collaboration with our senses.
Baal HaSulam, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, Part One,
“Inner Reflection,” Chapter 10
We have no perception whatsoever in the essence of the person in himself, without the matter. This is because our five senses and our imaginations offer us only manifestations of the actions of the essence, but not of the essence itself.
For example, the sense of sight offers us only shadows of the visible essence as they are formed opposite the light.
Similarly, the sense of hearing is but a force of striking of some essence on the air. And the air that is rejected by it strikes the drum in our ear, and we hear that there is some essence in our proximity.
The sense of smell is but air that emerges from the essence and strikes our nerves of scent, and we smell. Also, the sense of taste is a result of the contact of some essence with our nerves of taste.
Thus, all that these four senses offer us are manifestations of the operations that stem from some essence, and nothing of the essence itself.
Even the sense of touch, the strongest of the senses, separating hot from cold, and solid from soft, all these are but manifestations of operations within the essence; they are but incidents of the essence. This is so because the hot can be chilled; the cold can be heated; the solid can be turned to liquid through chemical operations, and the liquid into air, meaning only gas, where any discernment in our five senses has been expired. Yet, the essence still exists in it, since you can turn the air into liquid once more, and the liquid into solid.
Evidently, the five senses do not reveal to us any essence at all, but only incidents and manifestations of operations from the essence. It is known that what we cannot sense, we cannot imagine; and what we cannot imagine, will never appear in our thoughts, and we have no way to perceive it.
Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” Item 12
The thought has no perception whatsoever in the essence. Moreover, we do not even know our own essence. I feel and I know that I take up space in the world, that I am solid, warm, and that I think, and other such manifestations of the operations of my essence. But if you ask me about my own essence, from which all these manifestations stem, I do not know what to reply to you.
You therefore see that Providence has prevented us from attaining any essence. We attain only manifestations and images of operations that stem from the essences.
Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” Item 12
As there is no perception of the Creator whatsoever, so is it impossible to attain the essence of any of His creatures, even the tangible objects that we feel with our hands.
Thus, all we know about our friends and relatives in the world of action before us are nothing more than “acquaintance with their actions.” These are prompted and born by the association of their encounter with our senses, which render us complete satisfaction although we have no perception whatsoever of the essence of the subject.
Furthermore, you have no perception or attainment whatsoever even of your own essence. Everything you know about your own essence is nothing more than a series of actions extending from your essence.
Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”