Welcome, enlightened viewers, to Science and Spirituality on Supreme Master Television. Today we continue to follow the footsteps of the story of our world’s creation based on the Kabbalah account. “Kabbalah” in Hebrew means “receiving.” Kabbalah is a supernatural science and a spiritual method of getting in contact with God. Kabbalah is not a religion, but rather it is founded on spiritual experience.

Attainment of God is achieved through an individual’s study of certain Kabbalah books such as the “Book of Zohar.” By way of scientific methods and through perceiving of the spiritual reality of the upper worlds, Kabbalahists can develop a sense of the surrounding spiritual space and this gives them wisdom to deal with our material world.

Kabbalah says if we wish to truly change anything in our world, including ourselves, we must first climb up to the spiritual level and do it from there. This is what Abraham, who is known to those of the Judaic, Christian and Islamic traditions as the Biblical “father of the nations,” discovered almost 4,000 years ago. This is the essence of Kabbalah.

Let’s briefly recap the creation process as we discussed on last week’s program. We had discussed the root of creation and the four phases of a creature’s, meaning an independent being’s, development, which differ by degree and kind of desires. This pattern of creation occurs again and again during the world’s evolution on every level and is a fundamental part of its design.

Every succeeding phase of creation has attributes of the previous phases – just as one who has reached adulthood may still act like a child on occasion. At the root of creation is the desire of the Creator who emanates Light, and who is the Light, to love and bestow. This is known as phase zero. However to do so, Light creates a vessel called a Kli or an underdeveloped creature.

The Kli has an opposing nature - that is, the desire to receive pleasure - and it is filled with the Light. This is phase one or Hochma. Once so filled, the creature senses the Giver behind the Light, and naturally responds by bestowing the Light back to the Creator in phase two or Bina. But the Creator’s pleasure comes from giving. Therefore, in order to please Hirm, the vessel simulates its own action by combining two desires, the receiving and bestowing of Light, at the same time.

This is phase three or Zeir Anpin. Out of this mixed action, the creation gets some sense of the Creator’s thought, and in phase four or Malchut becomes a creature that feels independent, but is not truly independent yet at this stage.

Malchut is aware of its own pleasure in two forms – one from receiving Light and second, from sharing the Creator’s status. Malchut feels in bliss in the world of infinity (Ein Sof), where every desire is fulfilled, and is spiritually very close to the Creator. Malchut is also now above its own root spiritual level.

But soon, the creature discovers that she is only a receiver of the Creator’s Light, She is ashamed of only receiving pleasure which brings her unbearable anguish that she is not on the same level as Hirm.

Therefore, Malchut decides first to completely end the receiving of the Light with an act called Tzimtzum or restriction. She then acquires Masach, which means ‘screen’, to control the reception of Light. This turn of events is to be applauded, as the creature wants to correct its own desires, in order to resemble the Creator. The creature’s true nature is to receive, not to bestow, hence once the vessel is filled up, no more pleasure can be received.

This is comparable to when we have satisfied a feeling of hunger. We no longer have an appetite for more food. Therefore if the pleasure is felt not because we receive it for ourselves, but because we immediately bestow delight upon another being, then pleasure and desires can be infinite, because it all depends on how much we can receive.

The more we can bestow upon another being, the more pleasure we receive. The role of Masach is to calculate how much inner Light is to be received into the vessel. The remaining Light, which is called the surrounding Light, is rejected and forms a surrounding environment for the creature. The screen basically controls the ratio between egoistic and altruistic desires of the creature.

As a result of the screen action, Malchut’s vessel is divided into two parts: The top, the white zone, constitutes the “Worlds,” which receive Light, thus it can bestow pleasure upon others called workable desires. The lower, gray zone, where no Light penetrates, constitutes creation, which is made purely of desires which cannot bestow pleasure on others called unworkable desires.

The workable desires feature the now familiar zero-to-four phase-structure, starting from the world “Adam Kadmon” (the root phase) at the top, followed by “Atzilut,” “Beria,” “Yetzira,” and then “Assiya” at the bottom. Similarly, the bottom part of the vessel constitutes unworkable desires and is divided into five levels. Starting from the top we have the “Still” (unchanging), at the root level, followed by the “Vegetative,” “Animate,” “Speaking,” and the “Spiritual” level at the bottom.

You might be surprised that spiritual desires are placed at the bottom of the vessel. We’ll clarify this later, when we discuss more about the nature of the material world from the Kabbalah perspective. Please stay with us.

Welcome back to Science & Spirituality. Today we are re-tracing how our world was created according to the ancient philosophy of Kabbalah.

The actual root of everything that occurs in our physical world is called the “Common Soul,” or “Adam ha Rishon,” or “Adam” for short, meaning “the first man.” Adam was divided into five levels of desires that do not receive the Light, named: Still, Vegetative, Animate, Speaking, and Spiritual.

Adam is surrounded by the worlds of Adam Atzilut and others that do receive the Light. Now with the help of those worlds, that are meant to be Adam’s surrounding environment, Adam tries to change himself by trying to receive Light, as those worlds taught him to do.

However, when Adam attempts to receive the Light, the received pleasure is so overwhelming that, due to his selfish desires, the screen (Masach) immediately shuts off the receiving of the Light. But this second Tzimtzum or restriction is very different from the first one experienced by Malchut. This is because now Adam receives the Light only for himself without consideration of the Creator’s pleasure. This is considered a sin, which in Kabbalah terms means Adam has moved away from the Creator’s purpose of creation.

Thus, during the process of collecting the Light, the egoistic intention expanded, and each desire tried to receive the Light selfishly upon themselves. Thus the Common Soul shattered into 600,000 pieces, with each piece representing a different desire. As a result, the vessel also shatters and Adam’s Common Soul descends through a system of worlds, and through 125 states, enveloping in greater and greater egoism, until Adam manifested on our physical plane of existence.

As a result of this great fall, Kabbalah says we have left the spiritual worlds and become scattered into many residual selfish desires, in which each piece of Adam’s soul experiences separation and isolation from the other pieces. Thus we do not know how to live in harmony with each other and our inanimate, vegetative, and animate creatures. In this world, the Creator’s Light is concealed from us by our own self-centered nature and we rely on the five physical senses – touch, taste, sight, smell and hearing - in order to satisfy our selfish needs. The shattering of Adam’s common soul, although it appears catastrophic from our physical world perspective, was a necessary step to fulfill the purpose of creation.

Human history has already shown how hard it is to address even a little piece of smaller desires. Thus can you imagine how hard it is to correct Adam’s large number of egoistic desires? In order to help Adam, the Light and Creator are concealed from humankind. The Creator, by Hiers concealment, gives Adam an opportunity to learn to bestow and love other creatures, and to experience the sensation of free will, which is actually an illusion.

The historic evolution of the material world we are familiar with is actually very simple. Everything in our world evolves along the same five stages; beginning at the bottom, and smallest desires, the Still or inanimate, then Vegetative level, followed by the Animate level, and the Speaking (human) level at the top, with the strongest desires and Spirituality as the absolute peak of the pyramid.

Our own human development also goes through phases zero through four. At its preliminary or zero stage, humanity has to satisfy the basic physical desires for sustenance, shelter, reproduction, and family, which are the same as animate desires. Then the first stage is followed by the desire for wealth. The second stage is a desire for power and respect, which are social desires. The third stage is the craving for more and more knowledge, hence we have the development of advanced science.

Today, as Kabbalahists say we are approaching the conclusion of this evolution stage, which has taken us thousands of years, they believe we are beginning to realize that it really did not yield much in terms of changing us. They say we are actually more lost and perplexed than at the beginning of the journey.

Today, relatively few people are at this stage, but their number is growing all the time. Eventually, every human being must come to the point where a craving for spirituality, which is a point initiated by the Malchut’s envy, meaning the inherent need in every creature to resemble Creator and reach his status again. Kabbalah says because the Creator is good, it means that the Creator created us with the intention of bringing us to the best possible state of being. This state is Hes own state.

Kabbalists say, they already live in the spiritual worlds, while living in this world. Desire for spirituality isn’t a separate level in its physical manifestation. Rather, it is a distinct level of development, a state where one’s soul yearns to return to its root in the Upper Worlds – a place where the soul was once in direct contact with the Creator. In Kabbalah, the actual act of correction is taken by the upper Light. We cannot do it without the Creator’s help.

So if we have desire for spirituality, but no means to develop it inside ourselves; meaning no special vessel, therefore no way to draw and expand the spiritual force upon ourselves, how can we do that? A prominent 20th century Kabbalist, Bal Ha Sulham answered this question in the “Introduction to the Talmud Eser Sefirot”:

"... There is a wonderful, invaluable remedy to those who engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah. Although they do not understand what they are learning, through the yearning and the great desire to understand what they are learning, they awaken upon themselves the Lights that surround their souls."

It is very important to remember that things evolve from up above and on downwards and from the spiritual to the corporeal. The reverse is not true. Also there is not a single event in our world that occurs without the agreement of the Upper Worlds. The only difference is that events in the spiritual worlds reflect altruistic intentions, while in our world they reflect egoistic intentions.

Thank you, our spiritual viewers, for joining us for this journey through our world’s creation from the Kabbalah perspective. Coming up next is Words of Wisdom, after Noteworthy News. May your days be graced with illumination from the Upper Light.