To carry out the task of becoming identical to the Creator, the first thing Creation must obtain is the right environment to evolve and become Creator-like. This environment is called “worlds.”
At Phase Four, Creation was divided into two parts: upper and lower (Figure 5). The upper part constitutes the Upper (Spiritual) Worlds, and the lower part constitutes Creation, which is made of desires where the Masach did not allow the Light to enter.
Using the Screen
Let’s talk some more about Phase Four and how it works with the Masach. After all, Phase Four is our root, so if we understand how it works, we might learn something about ourselves.
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Upper and Lower
We already know that Creation is made of one thing only: a will to receive delight and pleasure. Therefore, upper and lower do not relate to places, but to desires that we relate to as higher or lower. In other words, higher desires are desires we appreciate more than the desires we consider inferior. In the case of Phase Four, any desire that can be used to bestow upon the Creator belongs in the upper part, and any desire that can’t be used in this way belongs in the lower part.
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Phase Four, Malchut, evolved from Phase Three, which evolved from Phase Two, etc.. Similarly, Abraham Lincoln wasn’t born president of the United States of America. He grew from baby Abe to a child, then to a youth, and finally to an adult who one day became Mr. President.
But Abe’s early stages did not disappear when he became president. Without them, President Lincoln would not have become President Lincoln. The reason we can’t see them is because the most developed level dominates and overshadows the less developed. But the last, highest level, not only feels the other levels within it, it works with these other levels. This is why we sometimes feel like children, especially when touched in places in our personalities where we haven’t matured. These places are not covered by a grownup layer, and those soft spots make us feel as defenseless as kids.
Nevertheless, this multi-layered structure is what enables us to eventually become parents. In the process of raising children, we combine our past and present phases. We understand the situations our children experience because we’ve had similar experiences, and we can relate to those situations with the knowledge and experience we’ve accumulated through life.
The reason we are built this way is that Malchut (Creation, Phase Four, us) is built in exactly the same way. All of Malchut’s previous phases exist within it and help sustain its structure.
To become as similar to the Creator as possible, Malchut analyzes each level of desire within itself and splits these desires into workable and unworkable ones within each level. The workable desires will be used to receive in order to give to the Creator, as well as “help” the Creator complete His task of making Malchut identical to Him.
A few pages back, we said that to carry out the task of becoming identical to the Creator, the creature must create the right environment to evolve and become Creator-like. That’s exactly what the worlds—workable desires—do. They “show” the unworkable desires how to receive in order to bestow upon the Creator, and in so doing, help the unworkable desires correct themselves.
We can picture the relationship between the worlds and Creation as a group of construction workers, where one of the workers doesn’t know what to do. The worlds teach Creation by demonstrating how to do each task: how to drill, how to use a hammer, a level, and so on.
In the case of spirituality, the worlds show Creation what the Creator has given them and how they work with it in the right way. Bit by bit, Creation can begin to use her desires in this way, too.
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From all we’ve learned so far, we still don’t know which of the five worlds we talked about is our physical world. Actually, none of them is ours. Keep in mind that there are no “places” in spirituality, only states. The higher the world, the more altruistic a state it represents. The reason our world isn’t mentioned anywhere is that the spiritual worlds are altruistic, and our world is, like us, egoistic. Because egoism is opposite to altruism, our world is detached from the system of the spiritual worlds. This is why Kabbalists did not mention it in the structure they depicted in their books.
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Workable and Unworkable Desires
Earlier in this chapter we said that the four-phase pattern is the basis for everything that exists. Therefore, when the desires were split into those that could receive Light, and those that couldn’t, they followed the same four-phase pattern. The desires that could receive Light are called “workable desires,” and desires that can’t receive Light are called “unworkable desires.”
The workable desires created the Upper Worlds, and the unworkable desires created Creation, and later our world (Figure 6). The workable desires at the Root Phase created the world Adam Kadmon, and the unworkable ones that remained dark (without Light) were called “still,” and formed the still (unchanging) level of Creation.
Workable desires at Phase One created the world Atzilut, and the unworkable ones remained dark and constitute the “Vegetative” level of Creation. Workable desires at Phase Two created the world Beria, and the unworkable ones constitute the “Animate” level of Creation. Similarly, workable desires at Phase Three constitute the world Yetzira, and the unworkable ones constitute the “Speaking” level of Creation. And finally, workable desires at Phase Four constitute the world Assiya, and unworkable ones remained dark and constitute the “Spiritual” level of Creation.
Note that the strongest desires, the most egoistic and seemingly most remote from the Creator, are called “spiritual.” Just as in the four phases, the most powerful desire wishes to become like the Creator. Hence, only the last degree, which is seemingly the darkest and most egoistic, can develop a desire to be like the Creator and achieve spirituality.
It turns out that Creation is the only part that still needs to be “worked on,” so it can receive Light. Let us learn how Creation evolved, how it became our world, and how we can correct it.
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It is important to remember that the Upper Worlds do not actually exist until we discover them as we develop our spiritual perception as we become like the Creator. The reason Kabbalists speak of these worlds in past tense is that they wrote their books for us after they climbed from our world to the spiritual worlds, and then told us what they had found.
To reveal the Upper Worlds, we, too, must climb there and see for ourselves. The only way to do that is by becoming similar to the Creator — altruistic. ___________________________________________________________________