The Key to Perception of Reality

By Michael Kellogg

We have before us a picture painted by our five senses, a picture we call our reality. We do perceive a vast array of things in this picture known as “my world,” but is it an accurate picture? Is it really what is going on outside of me?

It rarely occurs to any of us that this picture we see just might be wrong. Why? Because we really have no idea what is happening outside of us, but rather only our own interpretation based on the information we take into our senses. We actually have a massive reality that we exist, yet we only sense a tiny part of it.

If we consider our eye and how it works, we find that light does not actually enter our head. It enters the eyeball until it meets the retina, which is basically a transference device. Light strikes the retina, but does not pass through it. Instead, the retina blocks the light and transfers information about the qualities of the light through our optic nerve to our brain. Our brain then paints a picture inside our head, its own interpretation of what is outside of us. The problem here is that the information transferred is very limited.
The retina is only sensitive to a tiny spectrum of light called the visual spectrum. If it was sensitive to the full spectrum of light known as radiation, we would be able to see x-ray, ultraviolet, infrared, microwave, and even sound waves. Our other senses work the exact same way. The entire problem lies in a lack of “equivalence of form” with the wider ranges of information that remain outside of us. Nor do we know even if that the tiny part we do perceive is accurate.

Actually we know it is not, otherwise we would see the skeletons of people and hear dog whistles. But even the picture that we do receive is not accurate because it is filtered information. It filters through “me,” my sense of “I”, my ego. And my actual perception of “my world” depends on the properties of my ego. We are made in a very special way where the properties of our ego are based on one overall characteristic: the “will to receive.” In other words, in every circumstance I perceive, I base whether or not it is good or bad on whether I receive pleasure from this circumstance.
The “will to receive” controls everything about us, and it comes in two forms. First, there is receiving in order to receive pleasure. But there is an even more complex form where I give in order to receive pleasure – I feel as though I am giving even though I am still receiving. We see examples of this in philanthropy of all kinds, such as a mother taking care of her children.
The “will to receive” greatly distorts the accuracy of this picture called “my world” and hides the remainder of reality from us. The end result of this filter is that my picture is totally inaccurate and I really have no idea of what is happening outside of me. I only know what my senses tell me and how I feel about it. Why do I not see what is outside of me accurately?

What we know is that if I do not have an equivalence of form with information striking my retina or eardrum, I do not sense that information. This also applies to my nature as well, the will to receive. What actually exists outside of me has a single overall property, just like I do. But that property is the opposite of mine. It is the “will to bestow.”

Since my overall property is the exact opposite of the property that exists outside of me, I have absolutely no way of accurately sensing what is really out there. Or do I?

Kabbalah is the process of modifying this property within me. If I can place a transference device, like the eardrum or retina, over my will to receive, where this transference device has the same properties as what is outside of me, then I will be able to perceive what is out there. That transference device is an intention to bestow, something totally foreign to me from birth. And when I do, a whole new reality opens up.

Sensing what is outside of me is called “sensing spirituality.” If we consider all the pleasures we have ever experienced in our entire lives as one tiny grain of sand, it is said that one single moment of sensing the spiritual is akin to the entire beach of pleasure. But how does one develop this sense?
The process of the development of this spiritual sensing organ is simply referred to as…Kabbalah.

Mike Kellogg, author of Wondrous Wisdom, teacher and lecturer for Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Research and Education Institute, is a long time student of Kabbalist Michael Laitman, and a member of the ARI Research Institute based in Tel Aviv, Israel. Mr. Kellogg can be contacted at mkellogg@kbb1.com