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What is reality?

Where are we? At the beginning of the 21st century? On a planet, in a solar system, in a galaxy, in a universe? In a neighborhood, a job, a family, a country? In my house, in love, in pain? Where? What is it I see around me and what is this collection of feelings, ideas and needs within that I call me? Unable to define it in any way, society simply names the picture reality and leaves it at that, as though only a fool would ever think of attempting to seriously find answers to those questions. The world tells us that there are only questions, and on the other hand offers explanations from religion, philosophy and even from the forefront of science. These "answers" may excite or satisfy us temporarily, but if we view them honestly against the real depth of the need to know, they fall far short of delivering an actual why, what, where, how or who. Modern science has finally discovered that the outcome of an experiment is influenced by the attitude of the observer, in other words reality can't be measured objectively, directly, is not fixed but is a product of an interaction of the environment with human awareness, feelings. Science can't probe beyond the barrier separating effect and cause using its traditional method. In order to advance in it's understanding of the governing force behind this product - reality, it must find a method of experimentation which includes the consciousness of the researcher. Imagine we are looking at one of those Magic Eye 3D perceptual puzzles made of dots and shapes... With our assumption of a two dimensional perceptual framework we see only shapes; we can't understand the relationship between the objects in the image. In time with repeated attempts and a growing need to see, we feel how our normal mode of perception can't give us the correct picture. If we don't give up and still want to see, this forces us to take a different approach to the image. We learn to use our sense of sight in a new way as we attempt to tune it into the illogic of what is before us. Eventually a coherent picture is revealed. But, instead of being in two dimensions, it's in three! The two dimensional image is still there but now we can see why the shapes were arranged the way they where and discover that the meaning of the picture is only evident when we perceive it in the higher dimension, and that a more inclusive reality had always existed along with the first one. Once we see this, it is obvious that the two dimensional picture could only have been created with the knowledge available in the third dimensional picture. And the idea to create such a picture must exist on an even higher dimension. A similar relationship exists between the events of our lives in this world and the limited means we use to grasp the real design and motivating force behind them. Kabbalah teaches us to feel and fully know both the how and why of the greater reality, not with our five physical senses, but by developing a new higher sense.

Bnei Baruch Los Angeles - Branch of Bnei Baruch World Academy of Kabbalah Study