Our Interaction with the Spiritual World

Synopsis is not necesarrily in Rabbi Kessin's own words

What is the true nature of our spiritual experiences?

The filtering of Reality

• We don’t create spirituality. Spirituality is present as an underlying reality of the universe.
• The physical is embedded in it as a conaminant to it
• Zohama, or the contamination that is the influence of the Satan is embedded in that
• The job of Adam was to remove the contamination off physicality.
• When he sinned, he embedded the Satan’s zohama in creation as a second layer of contamination.
• The job of a Jew is to remove both layers of contamination and reveal the spiritual.
• Even a spiritual universe can and will be filtered further to effect a greater revelation of the shechina until Olam Haba which is the greatest and most pure state.
• The components of the world were created and set in place by Hashem to aid the Jew in this endeavor

3 Components of Creation

• Physical, Spiritual & Hashem’s domain
• Hashem is not spiritual – He transcends spirituality
• Hashem’s true nature cannot be known
• This is the realm of the Ain Sof (The shechina / presence of Hashem at the highest level) and Atzmuso (Hashem Himself as far as we know)
• The Shechina is the greatest presence of Hashem that can be known. Atzmuso is absolutely beyond comprehension or description

The difference between th4e spiritual and physical

• Gashmiyim / physical beings are any created entity that is directly perceptable to us either directly or through it’s effects (energy for example)
• Rucaniyim / spiritual beings  are any created entity that is not directly perceptable to us at all. They are completely devoid of physicality.
• Experiences advertised by the world like a transendance, expansion of the mind, hyperfocus & oneness are not spirituality. This is true even though one may not have any connectin with the physical. This is a mental state. The mental state may not be physical, and the person may be divorced from physicality to a great extent, but it’s not spiritual.
• Spirituality is experiencing something from the spiritual world. The only spirituality you may detect is your neshama and anything you detect through it.
• Nevuah and true ruach hakodesh are the ultimate true spiritual states that Hashem allowed us to experience
• Even ruach hakodesh & nevuah went through the imagination, and the beings that were interacted with had to clothe thamselves as part of the imagination.
• Even Moshe’s level of nevuah was via the imagination & physical senses. The greatness of his nevuah was that there was no distortion through filters other than the “boundary” between the physical and spiritual universes (meaning the only filter was the fact that it was projected through the physical).
• The true nature of galus is the current inability to experience ruchniyus on this level
• Astral projection and near death experiences are nonphysical states, but they’re not spiritual. It may be a mental level of existence that includes the consciousness.
• Auras are part of the mental world, which are part of the physical

Subdivisions of the Physical

• Matter
• Energy
• The mental world
• Galgalim & Kochavim (Astrological bodies). The stars and planets do have an effect & influence on us. The Ramchal probably means that the astrological bodies act as indicators that reflect the configuration of the the Sefiros, not that the astrological bodies have a direct influence on the universe. (Modern astrology cannot be relied upon for the most part)