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The Fifth Level and the Barrier

The sole purpose of everything that happens in our world is to
take you across the barrier between our world and the spiritual
world. Once you cross it, you can start advancing in spirituality.
Where did this barrier come from? You may recall that
contact with the Creator can exist only if you, like Him, have the
intention to give. Because He created you without the intention
to give, you are separated from Him. This separation is called a
barrier because it bars you from direct contact with Him. The
good news is that you can cross the barrier and meet the Creator
“face to face” simply by wanting the intention to give.
Kabbalah has many divisions. One division is into Sefirot,
another is into worlds, and another is into levels of vitality.

So spiritual as well as corporal life is divided into five levels of
vitality:

1.Still (inanimate)
2.Vegetative
3.Animate (alive)
4.Speaking (human)
5.Spiritual (point in the heart)

Every being has all five levels, but the predominant level
determines its category. Animals, for example, have some
characteristics that are typically human, such as the ability to
plan for the future, but this is not their predominant trait.
Humans have animalistic characteristics, too, but we are still
fundamentally different from animals.
What makes people human in the spiritual sense is their
ability to experience a uniquely human state: the desire to be
spiritual (like the Creator), the point in the heart. This is the
highest state, where you can
cross the barrier into the
spiritual realm.

Achieving this stage involves different factors
than the first four levels of vitality, which are based on
biological factors. Levels 1–4 evolve through pressures from
nature that push evolution along unconsciously. But evolution

to the fifth level is voluntary and conscious, made out of one’s
own free choice. A desire for it is the first step to crossing the
barrier. It’s the desire mentioned in the beginning of this book,
the desire to ask what life is about, the desire upon which
Kabbalah itself is based.