Kabbalah and Science

Lesson 2

Me and the Reality Outside of Me

• Newton - There is an objective reality
• Einstein - The perception of reality depends on the velocity of the observer
• Reality is a result of the merging of who I am and what is outside of me
• Kabbalah - There is no reality outside of me at all
• Is it possible for me to change my properties and sense a different reality?

During thousands of years, until Newton's era, science evolved out of the belief that there is a reality, and there is the person who studies reality. And so it could be possible that without me being present in the world, without the presence of humanity, without any life on earth, reality would still exist by itself. Whether we are present or not, something still exists outside of us in an objective way. As time passed, further research demonstrated that this previous conclusion wasn't necessarily correct, it was discovered, however, that our perception of reality depends on us. Einstein began to reveal this fact when he added to the laws of Newton by introducing the concept of the velocity of the observer who sees and studies reality, revealing that traveling at speeds approximating the speed of light makes reality change. When our perception changes, we change, whoever is studying reality changes? There is a very important point here with which Einstein revolutionized the scientific world. From the Kabbalistic point of view, there was no innovation in this discovery except for the claim that reality is relative, is dependent on the method of observation and changes according to the observer's point of relation to it. This means that the picture I grasp depends on me and doesn't exist outside of me, regardless of whether I exist or not.

That is Einstein's theory, from 1920. Later on, after further research, scientists concluded that reality does not depend just on the velocity of the observer relative to it, but that reality is subjective- existing exactly to the extent that the observer perceives it. And so the picture created in me is some average of what I am and what is outside of me, so that anything I perceive, I perceive with my own properties. If my properties change - the picture changes as well. This is actually what happens, as we can observe in animals, that even when they are close to us in the nature of their body they still sense and see reality differently. If we were constructed differently, with ten senses or twenty as opposed to five, if we had other senses or we could grasp reality in some other scope then surely the picture we have of reality would have been different. We would grasp reality with senses other than vision or hearing, we would grasp something else. What would we grasp? Whatever would have been apparent in us according to our other attributes?

So according to Newton, reality exists outside of me whether I am present or not. According to Einstein reality exists outside of me, but I perceive it according to my velocity. And there is the approach that claims that reality is a combination of what is outside and of my self, creating a picture which is the average of external and internal attributes. The wisdom of Kabbalah brings a fourth approach, claiming that there is no reality outside of me. Outside of me there is only what we call "Upper Light", a single, unique force that includes nothing, and that whatever I perceive of it, I grasp according to my properties - if I would change my properties I will perceive a different reality. It means that reality is just a reproduction of my own inner properties. When discussing this with scientists today who have already reached this conclusion, they realize that this is actually the next step.

But they still have a question - if it is according to my properties, then what can I do with my properties? Since I am born this way, can't I then expand my senses by using microscopes, telescopes, all sorts of instruments? No. With that I do not change my properties; I do not study anything external. We want to know what is outside, and that doesn't exist, as I've said. But there is something present out there, applying pressure on me. If I were to equalize with it, I would attain equal properties as the external reality, I would exit the body completely. I would feel something which would not be limited by my five senses any more, beyond life and death, time, space and location. I would exit completely what is called "the biological person" and exist on the level of other senses, other perceptions and sensations. Scientists accept this and agree to it, but they do not know how this is possible logically. The concept already exists as well as willingness and a desire to get to it.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah we do not need to make any changes in our senses. We may leave them bestial just the way they are. Kabbalists already wrote thousands of years ago that we will not be able to improve our existence in this world through this type of comprehension. Expanding our senses, knowing more details about our senses, how they perceive the outside, will not help us with our existence because we are only learning about ourselves, how we are inside. What will that give us? We are not getting any closer to a balance of forces between us and what is outside of us. The difference between the general force that is outside of us and the way we are inside acts on us, constantly pressuring us and awakening in us a sensation of suffering.

And so this general law of reality which is outside of us, called "infinite surrounding light" pressures us. To use those five openings is not a problem, but the goal is different - that we equalize with it. Every cell, every form that exists in this world exists only in the condition that it is in balance with its environment. This applies to all levels of society, family, properties of matter, heat and cold, whatever - that is the situation.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says the following: if we want to attain the perfect existence, we just need to replicate this law, this attribute that exists on the outside, "infinite light", on ourselves, into ourselves, so that it will actually become our law - so that the outer and the inner laws will be equal. Then we will not be limited to our biological life, inside this body with its five senses. The senses are present - we live, the senses aren't - we don't know, as if we are dead, gone onto another existence. We can now, in our lifetime, get out of our perception and grasp reality as it is outside. To the extent that we develop, the more the desire to receive grows inside, from Behinat Shoresh to Alef, Bet, Gimel, Dalet, we grow to be more in contradiction to this general law. At a coarseness of Shoresh, Alef or Bet we are still not too opposed to it. But at a coarseness of Gimel or Dalet like in our time, we begin to experience more and more sufferings and the entire world seems to be suffering, in disorientation, lack of direction at all levels; economy, education, what ever it may be. There are no families any more; people want to escape onto drugs and so on. Why? Because we are at the level of coarseness Dalet, which is a very high degree of development, and in great contradiction to the surrounding light.

It turns out that development itself brings us to a state where we need to begin transforming ourselves, not in relation to our inner perception of reality, but in relation to the external reality. I was recently at a meeting with scientists, some of them Nobel Prize recipients, and we had discussions and interviews with the press. What they draw are graphs similar to ours, and what they say is that since approximately 1995 we began to reach a situation in which science can not develop any further, since it can not help us further to be in homeostasis, in balance with our environment.

And so, as it is written in the Zohar and other Kabbalistic books, the need for the wisdom of Kabbalah arises, the understanding that the Kabbalah now has to become the general, main science of humankind. That is because humanity tried all other methods, and reached the understanding that it is necessary to know the general law. This general law, which Einstein expected to reveal, this general field in which we exist, where all matter is located as chunks layered on a web of forces, is just a law called "Creator", or a law of bestowal to the created beings. This law is pressuring us in order to promote us to be more in conformity with it.

When this fact is submitted to scientists - about the need to act according to the fourth theory - they understand it. They see that man needs to change because there is no objective reality, reality is perceived in us according to our attributes, and if we will change the attributes according to this single general law we will reveal something completely different. We are now at a very advanced state with them, beginning to write joint books and doing research together, an integral research of reality. The progress is such that there is an international team for integral science forming now, which will integrate all sciences with the wisdom of Kabbalah. I am hoping that we will merit to see in the next few months, or within a year or two, major development in that the wisdom of Kabbalah will be recognized as what actually supplies mankind the answer to how reality is constructed. And this answer is that reality is just a picture and a reflection of our properties. We construct it and whatever appears to me as existing around me appears so because of my senses. If I would change my senses according to the general law, according to the properties that are outside of me, then I would see a completely different reality, I would receive entirely new abilities to live, to cope, and to exist. It will not be just passing through walls or other nonsense like that, but living entirely in a sensation which is beyond time, space, motion, life, death, etc.

To someone who hears about this for the first time this may seem unreal, like dreaming. But this is a completely scientific, practical approach.

Baal HaSulam writes at the end of his article, "The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy" that ".therefore, there has never been such a victory for Israel as when the materialistic psychology was discovered, and cast a final blow upon the theological philosophy. And since that time, anyone who yearns for the Creator,." (meaning whoever desires to know this external reality) ".must return the Kabbalah to its deserved chair of honor - return the glory to its original owner." Meaning to place the wisdom of Kabbalah above all other wisdoms in an integral way, so that they will be included in it. It is necessary to know that while all other wisdoms deal with our internality only, developing our vision, hearing and senses, the wisdom of Kabbalah opens for us the reality which is outside of us, and then we can know all of the laws that are acting on us.

To the extent that we begin equalizing with this general law, identifying parts of ourselves with what is outside of us, we begin to direct this law and the way it acts on us. In this way, we begin to control our daily fortune, as well as the entire reality, the entire existence and universe. This is actually what the ancient philosophers did not understand and that is why they thought that through philosophy, through studying with the inner intellect, not the external, they would be able to achieve control over reality.

I would just like to add here, that what happened during history is that in the place where philosophy ended a few hundred years ago, it began to develop the materialistic psychology, meaning the science about our attributes, about our senses and about how we grasp our world out of our senses. That is why we have reached a situation today where we can see that we are limited. We only perceive things inside ourselves, and that in order to exit from this, from ourselves, we need the wisdom of Kabbalah.