What is the soul? The soul is a desire created by the Creator to enjoy Him (the Light).
It is actually in perfect adhesion with the Creator, just as it was when it was first created. But the soul needs to accomplish this situation in its own right, to actually obtain an equivalence of form independently, and in so doing become like its Creator. In order to accomplish this task, the Creator completely separates the soul from Himself. This happens by giving the soul the exact opposite attribute that He possesses – the will to receive again.
Through this disparity of form, the soul stops sensing the Creator and is clothed in a corporeal body with the will to receive pleasure purely for its own sake. So if the soul does not sense the Creator, what does it sense? It senses “our world,” the very place that we consider our entire existence. In order to achieve that original state again, when it was complete and sensed the Creator, the soul must take on the task of attaining those attributes of the Creator. It does this through a process that is akin to giving birth to them, creating them itself.
How to Find the Point in the Heart
The soul, as it exists in “our world,” is no more than a point. From this single point we can only perceive our own will, which is to delight the corporeal bodies within which we reside. Yet from this point, remote as it can possibly be from the Creator, we are at the perfect place to start our journey back toward the Creator. It is important here not to confuse the soul with the will to receive for ourselves, our current condition. Remember that the soul is a singular desire to enjoy the Creator. In a way, the soul is like a part of the Creator. It’s just that the Creator is the whole, and the soul is a part.
Everyone has a soul existing within them. When we first become aware of it, the soul is felt as a point in the heart, at the center of all desires, in our ego. But at what level is this soul? That is something we must all discover. We see millions of people all over the world with absolutely no recognizable desire except to fulfill their own wants. Within these people exists the soul as well, yet in an embryonic state. Kabbalah calls this soul, “a point in the heart.”
In this instance, the heart is the desire to take pleasure in everything around us. And that point is the one single desire out of all other desires a person possesses that is not a desire for worldly pleasures. It is the desire to reveal its Creator.
The Point in the Heart Starts Growing through Our Desires’ Development
Humans develop desires for physical pleasures, and then for wealth, power, control, and knowledge. After those desires for worldly pleasures, generally called the “heart,” is the desire for spirituality. This desire is the end of the line, where nothing in this world can possibly fulfill that lack.
The desire for spirituality seems to appear within the animate desires, hence the name, “point in the heart.” Of course, those desires have nothing to do with the heart in our bodies. If we implanted a new heart in someone, it would not change a single characteristic in that person— even if we implanted a new brain. The spiritual sphere has nothing to do with our biological bodies.
The point in the heart is not really considered the soul, but the “soul in potential.” At this stage, it resembles a lack that simply cannot be filled. We know we want something, we know we are missing some- thing, but for the life of us, we cannot figure out what we need. The point in the heart is like a drop of desire, a yearning for supreme attainment, for the Creator.
If a person begins to develop it, it grows like the sperm that has fertilized a human egg and now has evolved into a fetus. When it becomes independent, it is called a “soul.”
“What Is the Point in the Heart?” is based on the book, Wondrous Wisdom: Everyone’s Guide to the Study of Authentic Kabbalah by Michael R. Kellogg.
