A person begins with seeking the ordinary necessities of food and shelter. When one feels that one needs more than this, then this person may progress to a desire for money. When money is no longer sufficient, so may begin the search for fame or status, and if one needs more than this, then one searches through all kinds of higher forms of pleasure: art, music, philosophy, sciences, and so on, which characterize the next stage of desire, the desire for knowledge. The desire to find meaning in life, or what Kabbalists call “the desire for spirituality,” appears in the final stage.
It is possible to say that man is like a “black box” which feels and understands and receives only that which comes from outside . In all of our investigations, we are limited by our five senses. And all of the instruments which we build, and which are to be built in the future, do not escape the limitations of our five senses. They merely widen the boundaries of our senses.
This is because we are never able to imagine what our senses lack. Namely, what other additional sense we need in order to recognize the true reality around us. We feel no lack for this, as we feel no lack of a sixth finger on our hands. That for which we feel no lack, can never be something to which we would come to request. Therefore, all of the investigations of our world are only according to our five senses, and we can never begin to see and feel and understand what is beyond our senses. These are the limitations of our conceptions.
If we are at nature’s mercy, if we are what we are because this is the way nature created us, and we have to live with whatever qualities we have in us like semi-intelligent beings, intelligent only in that we are aware of the fact that our actions are determined by the characteristics and nature traits we were created with and cannot do anything about – in this case, there is no telling where wild, non-intelligent nature can lead us, causing us permanently to fight one another, making whole nations, like wild animals guided by instinct, fall upon one another in a vicious fight. Yet, subconsciously, we cannot reconcile the idea of ourselves as intelligent beings with this concept.
People in our world don’t have any means of salvation, and no spells and no magic tricks can help them. If one can direct that point in the heart correctly, then one receives forces from Above that create from that point in the heart a so-called Partzuf, or Ten Sefirot, or Soul. Then, That Soul, that part that was constructed begins ascending with the person into the spiritual world. But that can happen only if one receives force from Above—the Light, the Upper Light. If one does not receive that light, one thus stays in this world—in egoistic desires and in a desperate search led by this point.
Two powers of human development force the man to seek for the aim – the suffering of the moment and the enjoyment expected in future.These two forces are like two locomotives pulling a heavily loaded train: the first ahead of the train, and the second one – from behind it. Upon the Creator’s will, the mankind will finally come to the condition of the absolute improvement, it means will develop from egoism to altruism. And Kabbalah helps each of us to find our own way to this condition.
We all progress through different stages of desire. A person begins with seeking the ordinary necessities of food and shelter. When one feels that one needs more than this, then this person may progress to a desire for money. When money is no longer sufficient, so may begin the search for fame or status, and if one needs more than this, then one searches through all kinds of higher forms of pleasure: art, music, philosophy, sciences, and so on, which characterize the next stage of desire, the desire for knowledge. The desire to find meaning in life, or what Kabbalists call “the desire for spirituality,” appears in the final stage.
