Just as it happens in the spiritual worlds, everything in our world evolves along the same five stages from Zero to Four. Our world is built like a pyramid. At the bottom, the beginning of the evolution of this world, there is the still (inanimate) level, made of trillions of tons of matter (see Figure 5).
Lost in these trillions of tons of matter is a tiny speck called “Planet Earth.” And on this Earth appeared the vegetative level. Naturally, the vegetation on Earth is infinitely smaller in mass than that of the still matter on Earth, all the more so compared to the quantity of matter in the whole universe.
The animate appeared after the vegetative, and has a tiny mass, even compared to the vegetative.
The speaking, of course, came last and has the least mass of all.
Recently, another level has sprung from the speaking level. It is called “the spiritual level” or “spirituality.”
(Since we are speaking of geological times here, when we say recently, we mean that it happened only a few thousand years ago.) We cannot grasp the full size of Creation, but if we look at the pyramid of Creation (in Figure 5) and think of the proportions between each two neighboring levels, we will begin to understand just how special and recent the desire for spirituality really is. Actually, if we think of the time the universe has existed—approximately 15 billion years—as a single day of 24 hours, the desire for spirituality appeared 0.0288 seconds ago. In geological terms, this is now.
Thus, on the one hand, the higher the desire, the rarer (and younger) it is. On the other hand, the existence of a spiritual level, above the human level, indicates that we haven’t completed our evolution. Evolution is as dynamic as ever, but because we are the last level to appear, we naturally think that we are the top level. We may be at the top level, but we are not at the final level. We are only at the last of the levels that have already appeared.
The final level will use our bodies as hosts, but will consist of entirely new ways of thinking, feeling and being. It is already evolving within us, and it is called “the spiritual level.”
No physical changes or new species are required, just an inner change in our perception of the world. This is why the next phase is so elusive; it’s within us, written in our Reshimot like data on a hard-drive. This data will be read and executed regardless of whether or not we are aware of it, but we can read and execute the data much more quickly and enjoyably if we read it with the right “software”—the wisdom of Kabbalah.
As Above, So Below
If we draw a parallel between the earthly phases of the Four Basic Phases of Light, the still era corresponds to the Root Phase, the vegetative era corresponds to Phase One, the animate era to Phase Two, the speaking era to Phase Three, and the spiritual era to Phase Four.
Planet Earth’s scorching youth lasted several billions of years. As it cooled, vegetative life appeared, reigning on the planet for many more millions of years. But just as the vegetative level on the spiritual pyramid is much narrower than the still level, the physical vegetative period was shorter than Earth’s inanimate period.
After the completion of the vegetative phase came the animate period. As with the previous two degrees, the animate era was much shorter than the vegetative era, matching the proportion between the vegetative and the animate degrees on the spiritual pyramid.
The human phase, which corresponds to the speaking level of the spiritual pyramid, has only been around for the past forty thousand years or so. When humanity completes its evolution of the fourth (and last) phase, evolution will be complete and humanity will reunite with the Creator.
The Fourth Phase began some five thousand years ago, when the point in the heart first appeared. As in the spiritual world, the name of the man who first experienced this point was Adam. He was Adam ha Rishon (The First Man). The name, Adam, comes from the Hebrew words, Adameh la Elyon (I will be like the Upper One), and reflects Adam’s desire to be like the Creator.
These days, at the start of the 21st century, evolution is completing its development of the Fourth Phase—the desire to be like the Creator. This is why today more and more people are looking for spiritual answers to their questions.