“We only attain the worlds according to our senses and sensations, as it was His will for us to attain Him so. This is the meaning of ‘There is no change in the Light.’” ~ Baal HaSulam

4 Aspects of Attainment and a Couple We Won’t Achieve

Now let us look into the four kinds of an object’s attainment:

1) Matter – We receive the most complete idea in our world with the first kind of attainment – Matter. This information is quite sufficient for our existence and interaction with the surrounding world.

2) Form in Matter – We receive the second kind of attainment, Form in Matter, after researching the surrounding nature using our senses. The evolution of this kind of attainment has led to the creation of science, on which we so deeply rely in every situation in life. This level of attainment of the world is also quite sufficient for humans.

3) Abstract Form – The third kind of attainment, Abstract Form, would have been possible if we could observe this form while detached from matter, rather than while dressed in matter. However, a form can be separated from matter only in imagination. Yet, as a rule, researching a form that is disconnected from matter, in its abstract form, yields no reliable results, and is not confirmed de facto. This is even truer when researching forms that have never been dressed in matter!

4) Essence – Thus, we see that of the four kinds of attainment of an object, its Essence is totally imperceptible, and its Abstract Form is attained incorrectly.
Only matter and its form, when analyzed in conjunction with matter, yield true and sufficient data about the researched object.

Getting Down to Earth in Our Deconstruction of Attainment – Making It Real

Let’s get down to Earth with a practical example of the four aspects of attainment. Suppose the object to be attained is a deceitful person:

1. Matter is that person’s body;
2. Form in Matter is the property of deceitfulness;
3. The Abstract Form is deceitfulness, as perceived regardless of the Matter;
4. The person’s Essence (which is absolutely inconceivable when separated from the body).

“We measure everything according to our imagination. From this it follows that if many people examine one spiritual thing, each will attain according to his imagination and senses, thereby seeing a different form.

In addition, the form itself will change in a person according to his ups and downs, as we have said above that the Light is Simple Light and all the changes are only in the receivers.”~ Baal HaSulam

Why the Essence of Attainment is Illusive

“All the changes are in the Kelim, meaning in our senses. We measure everything according to our imagination.”                      ~ Baal HaSulam

We cannot imagine the Essence per se with our sense organs, even when supplemented by any fantasy. We can attain only the actions and reactions to the surrounding reality, and the various interactions with the Essence.

All our sensations reveal only the interactions of the Essence’s reactions, not the Essence itself. Even our tactile sense, which provides us with information of an object’s hardness and temperature, does not reveal the object itself, but enables us to judge it based solely on our reaction to touching and sensing it.

Why We Can’t Make Sense of the Senseless Stuff

For instance, when we examine an object, the eye perceives not the object itself, but its interaction with the light, or rather the light’s interaction with the eye. Our auditory sense perceives not the sound, but the interaction of the wave with our auditory sense. Our gustatory sense perceives not the object itself, but the interaction of saliva, nerve tips, and glands with an object.

Thus, the maximum attainment of the world lies in researching how the Essence influences us. However, since even in our wildest fantasies we cannot imagine the Essence without having felt it at least once, we lack the mental image and the desire to research it.

How It Is Absolutely Impossible to Know Ourselves

We cannot even know ourselves, our own Essence. Perceiving myself as an object that occupies a place, a form, temperature, and ability to think, I perceive the results of my Essence’s actions, not the Essence itself.

“’What we do not attain we do not know by name.’ This is so because the word “name” indicates attainment, like a person who names some object after having attained something about it according to one’s attainment.” ~ Baal HaSulam

See the Glass Ceiling in the Spiritual Worlds That Will Limit Your Attainment

In the spiritual worlds, Beria, Yetzira, Assiya, (BYA) every object is attained only in its matter and form. Readers studying The Zohar should remember the necessity to restrict themselves to the two types of research available to us—matter and form in matter.

Remember, besides the spiritual worlds, all the Sefirot within the worlds are subdivided into four levels of attainment. Thus, Sefirat Hochma constitutes the Form, while Bina, Tifferet, and Malchut together constitute the Matter dressed in the Form.

Only Sefirot Bina, Tifferet, and Malchut are examined in The Zohar. The book does not concern itself with examining the form abstracted from matter, let alone with the Essence – the Creator’s part (Ein Sof) that animates every part of Creation.

Sefirot Bina, Tifferet, and Malchut in the world Atzilut are available for our research, whereas Sefirot Keter and Hochma, even at the end of the world Assiya are unavailable to us.

“Is Spiritual Attainment Your Goal? Read the Fine Print on Attainment” is based on the book, Basic Concepts in Kabbalah: Expanding Your Inner Vision by Dr. Michael Laitman.