Kabbalah and Psychology Part 8

Daat Reflecting the Unconscious

The Hebrew word for consciousness is .The root of is ,the third intellectual faculty, usually interpreted as knowledge. 13 As mentioned above, the sefirah of knowledge is the conscious reflection of the super-conscious crown in the psyche. Rabeinu Hai Gaons students were essentially asking: What is the secret of how to manifest the super-conscious of the Divine soul into our consciousness? A wise question is half the answer,14 and indeed, if we contemplate the students question we see that, ten we know refers to the ten conscious powers of the soul, while, thirteen we do not know, refers to the extra three, unconscious powers of the soul. Similar to the way the Torah manifests as seventy different facets, consciousness manifests in ten different ways. The study of the inner dimension of the Torah relates to the study of the relationship between the unconscious soul-powers and their conscious manifestations.

Four Levels of Consciousness

In Kabbalah and Chassidut, a distinction is made between four ascending worlds. The highest is the World of Emanation, the second, the World of Creation, the

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Solomon Ibn Gevirol; a sage from the early period of the Rishonim.

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In general, the Hebrew term for the conscious manifestation of the psyche is referred to as ,gilui, revelation, while the unconscious is ,heelem, literally meaning, the concealed [dimension of the soul].

third, the World of Formation, and the fourth and lowest world is the World of Action. We will describe these worlds, beginning with the World of Action, and go up from there. The World of Action (Asiyah) In this world, ones state of consciousness is purely practical. People who function at this level of consciousness have the attitude that reality evolves as the direct result of the processes and actions that occur in the physical world. The World of Formation (Yetzirah) parallels the world of emotion in the human psyche. At this level of consciousness, the person experiences an independent, egocentric existence that revolves around his own feelings, which are affected by his environment. The World of Creation (Beriyah) parallels the world of human intellect. The World of Emanation (Atzilut) is the world of the completely righteous, a world that is totally good. Because of the abundance of Divine awareness in this world, the tzaddik does not experience himself as being separate from God at all. He reaches a state in which he recognizes Gods ultimate desire in the world. He even sees how this desire can be achieved in the lower worlds, which have yet to manifest it. The tzaddiks only desire at this level is to manifest Gods will at the lower levels of creation. The source of this level is in the super-conscious crown.

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