How Can We Imagine the Upper World?
Dr. Michael Laitman:
Do you ever think that your hand feels odd because you have only five fingers? Probably not. Although we can increase the range our five senses perceive, we cannot really imagine what perceptions we lack. It’s impossible to recognize the true reality because it isn’t something that we feel the absence of any more than we feel the lack of a sixth finger.
Because imagination is the product of the five senses, we can never envision an object or creature that is not in some way already familiar. Think of the most creative children’s book illustrator or the most abstract artist you know. Do their designs in some way resemble things that exist in the physical world? Try to imagine the wildest thing, and you will still create something already known or that you can puzzle out from your experience of everyday reality.
Quite possibly, you and I receive many sensations from external objects. But because our senses do not have the same qualities as those objects, we do not perceive them. We perceive only that part of the object that resonates to qualities we already have. For a complete perception of anything, we need to first be complete within. In other words, we have to be aware of all the forms of reality that exist in us, and then our picture of reality will be complete.
So how do we attain the sixth sense that enhances our perception beyond conventional reality? In fact, it exists in everyone but is hidden. With right intention we can bring this dormant sense into action.
Through persistence and study, we begin to gain perception of the world of the Creator—the world of giving. In Kabbalah, that world is called “the Upper World.” By study and development of the sixth sense, we gradually begin to feel and to understand the Upper World.
