What Is Enlightenment?

Today the word enlightenment became a vogue expression for many things, but when we want to approach a mystical journey we should learn about its goal and destination. The levels of all spiritual traditions can be divided into states, which are waking, dreaming and deep sleep. Sometimes it is spoken also of a fourth state, which encompasses all three, which could be called the non-dual state.

The state of waking is our Everyday consciousness, where an uncountable flow of thoughts is constantly entering our mind, which most of the time is just busy with chattering. To purify our daily life from unnecessary thoughts, the Kabbalists gave us tools of actions to perform at certain periods of times. This will purify our lowest level of the soul, called 'Nefesh'. All instructions of the Torah serve this purpose, namely to sanctify our Everyday lives.

But one who wants to attain higher states of consciousness for the purpose to attain true prophecy should study Kabbalistic books like the Zohar. What those books are generally doing is to elevate our soul to the level of dreams. This means, that we rise into the astral dimension, which we normally only visit while we're asleep, but now while being fully awake. In this world I'm not limited by my five senses, but I can begin to visit other worlds and other beings, that inhabit them. The rise to the soul level of Ruach, so to say is the descent into our own subconscious. That's why often the mystical process in Kabbalah is described as a descent to the Merkabah rather than an ascent. The attainment in the spiritual dimension can be increased to a level, where one enters a dimension, which exists of thoughts only. This level in Kabbalah we call Briyah or the intellectual soul of Neshamah. While on the level of Neshamah ideas and thoughts can be conceived or created, and discerned from each other, the level above it, namely Chayah, which belongs to the world of Atzilut, is itself beyond any thought processes. The world of Atzilut can be only perceived, when it is clothed in Binah consciousness. A state which is already beyond any forms, ideas, feelings, or thoughts equals the state of deep sleep, which is empty of any processes of the mind.

Then there's also the non-dual state, which we call in Kabbalah 'Yechidah', which means 'unity'. This state itself is as well beyond the processes of the mind, but here the subject and object division no longer exists, and the soul attains complete unity with God. In this state, which is often described as 'Ayin' nothingness the separated self ceases to exist. This means, that one enters a process, which goes into the infinite (the Ein Sof), and whose direction one will never determine. One who attains Yechidah is attaining the Ein Sof, which can be considered as the whole edifice of all the worlds.