A Hidden World
In order to research itself and the surroundings, humanity has developed various sciences such as physics, chemistry, biology etc. They are called Natural Sciences, and they are based on man’s five senses. In order to help himself with studying nature, man built instruments to extend the range of his senses. Gradually, from generation to generation man gained experience and reached a better understanding of the problem of survival in this world. But among all sciences, there is one that develops us quite differently; it is called the science of Kabbalah.
Beyond the corporeal world that we research, there is another world, concealed. Though we cannot see it, we do feel its existence. But why do we assume its existence if we cannot feel it? It is because we see that there are specific laws, which are a part of a broader reality. We understand that such general, more rational laws, which describe our lives and our existence comprehensively, simply must exist. There is something that eludes us, slips our awareness.
Hence, there is something around us we cannot grasp. But how can we come to grasp it if we don’t have the appropriate senses? Can we create them, or acquire them, in order to feel a more complete and real creation?
It is quite possible that this creation does exist around us in all its layers, but we divide it to the apprehended part we call “our world,” or “this world,” and the as yet unfelt layer. If we had other senses, although it’s hard for us to see it, we would probably also feel the world differently, perhaps with a broader and deeper vision. But such senses don’t exist and so we suffer. We don’t know how to behave with one another and with our surroundings; we don’t see our past and future lives.
When dealing with a scientific study of the world, we come to a stage where our knowledge is exhausted and we’re left helpless. Though there are many ways to enhance our ability to predict the future, beyond the boundaries of our regular senses, they in fact add very little. We are capable of attaining very limited abilities to predict, but we never achieve clear knowledge of the future and complete attainment. This can be achieved only when we are acting in full cooperation with the world around us.
Man is a highly developed creature. But the more humanity develops, the more individuals feel helpless and lost. We see that the development of science and research into the world around us have failed to give us the results we were hoping for. Hence we must face the fact that the solution to the problem is found in our senses themselves.
There is a very accurate method that develops an additional sense called the “sixth sense”, a “screen” or a “returning light”, that gives us the ability to see and feel that part of reality we can’t perceive with our normal senses.
We receive our five senses at birth, but we ourselves must develop the sixth sense.
An individual is suddenly ‘summoned’ from above; he feels compelled to experience a more comprehensive reality and thus the need to develop the sixth sense is born. This is a gradual process. Humanity is constantly evolving, its desires, as well as those of the individual change continuously. At first, they aim at physical pleasures, on an animal level, the enjoyment of food, sex and family ties. Then, they desire satisfaction on a human level, seeking wealth, power, respect and knowledge. Only after all those desires are realized, there appears the wish to attain the sublime reality, to attain an essence beyond the senses.
The first prompting to sense a reality beyond ourselves is called the “fetus” of the sixth sense. From this stage on, the development of the sixth sense will depend on the individual himself. That sense cannot be developed in isolation, but we are able to use a special system that has been given to humanity. It is called “the wisdom of Kabbalah.”
In each generation there are people who receive a prompting from above and feel the need to develop this sixth sense. Then, somehow, these people find the books and the teachers who can help them develop. These teachers are called “Kabbalists,” from the word Kabbalah (receiving), because they receive that knowledge and convey it to us. They convey their impressions of their experiences and method so that we too can attain their degree of spiritually. They speak of the way an individual acquires the desire to attain the actual reality, after he has already realized his desires for wealth, power, respect and knowledge.
In the end, we must all come to a situation, if not in this life, then in the next, we must attain the situation where one lives simultaneously in all levels of reality. We must feel this not only through our five senses, as we all do, but through the new sense as well. This will ensure our inner peace and complete tranquility.
The development of that inner ‘vessel’, called the “sixth sense,” is formed by the order of “cause and effect,” or by the pyramid principle, on which the whole of mankind is built. The sixth sense is awakened in a certain type of person, one who is at the top of the pyramid.
The people whose sense developed first were called Hebrews, from the Hebrew word Ever (over), to go over the barrier, the outermost circle in our world. The Patriarch Abraham was the first to cross over from the limited sensation of this world to the sensation of the upper world. The descendants of Abraham are the top of the pyramid in which the sixth sense will develop. But this is only the beginning of humanity’s development. The prophets say that in the future all mankind will have to attain that level of development, meaning the sensation of the whole of reality, a bonding with the upper forces and full comprehension of the cycle of life. Everyone will have to attain an existence beyond the concepts of life and death as we know them and will then exist at all levels of reality.
All past Kabbalists have pointed to our time as the turning point, when millions of people would begin to adapt themselves to the spiritual realm and would develop a sixth sense. All previous generations were a preparation for this turning point. Those generations went through a process called "the decline of the souls." In that process, the soul descends from its uppermost state in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) and goes lower and lower, through many worlds, down to our own. Then, once in our world, the soul continues to descend through the generations, through the ruin of the first and second temples, and the four exiles. In our generation, the long exile has ended. From now on there is only an ascent of souls.
All the Kabbalists before our time were people who prepared the system of the ascent for us. We, in our generation, are the group of souls that was joined together to become the first in the line of the collective group of souls to rise with our vessels, to actually elevate in our emotions.
If you study the texts of the Ari and the books of Baal HaSulam, you will find that they say everything very simply. That is the reason why, in our time, the Kabbalah is beginning to be more open and more widely publicized. Even so, only a handful of us understand what Kabbalah is about, why it is called a science, why it was concealed and why it comes to people in such a unique way. However, the attraction to spirituality already exists and every one can feel it, though Kabbalists had already spoken about it many generations ago.
When a person develops a clear need to understand the upper reality, he must start developing the “point in the heart.” He has to start building the sixth sense, using the system of Kabbalah. The process takes several years. The sense grows slowly and evolves; the individual begins to feel the outer world, the world of the causes. He is then given a precise vision of the reasons for events in our world, because he can already see the origin of the reasons and the conclusion of all acts, all forces, all our desires and thoughts.
We can see all that not with our five senses, but only with the sixth sense. The “self” of man, that which belongs to his essence, is felt only in the sixth sense. From the moment that sense develops, the individual begins to feel what we call the “soul.”
One is rewarded in two ways: first, he begins to see how thoughts and desires pass from him to others; he understands how he receives thoughts from others or is influenced by them. He begins to see how the world works, and how everything relates to the surrounding nature and returns back to him. The concept of time vanishes altogether and the person sees everything at once, past, present and future - the real meaning of the word “time.”
The second reward is that not only does the individual see everything, but he also starts to acquire a correct understanding of what is happening around him. He acquires the ability to influence providence and so can influence the world from the outside. Thus it is possible not only to predict the future, but also to create the future.
These forces appear in man to the extent that he goes beyond his own nature and begins to think in terms of the upper world.
All these things are real, and all of us, without exception, can attain them. The collective law of creation makes it necessary for each of us to advance to that state. However, humanity is walking toward this reality unconsciously, against its will. A person who begins to advance willingly toward the goal and who wishes to attain actual reality and the spiritual life, such a person no longer feels worldly pains and pressures, but immediately sees that nature and the universe are filled with good, not evil.