In Kabbalah the concept of an expanding universe comes into play when we consider the operation of holiness throughout the four worlds. These four worlds of Assiyah, Yetzirah, Briyah and Atzilus are intertwined then with the ten Sephiros expanding throughout these worlds according to the various influences that they represent in terms of their physical and emotional counterparts within the system of thought defined as Consciousness.
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These expansions take place in the following manner. We have an influx of no-thought called Ayin or Nothing evolving into Ayin Sof Or or the Limitness Light. Inside of this definition all the permutations of reality then are evolved into taking place. Everything is accounted for here but first the conceptual signposts have to be established in order to progress along this line of creation.
Consider that in any expansion there is a vessel and a pourer that fills the vessel until it overflows requiring the need for another vessel and so on. These continuing vessels are called the Sephiros and they represent the those permutations of Consciousness that both reflect its increasing complexity and its qualities both acting a defining parameters of those vessels.
The pourer of the vessels is emanating from Ayin Sof Or called the Eternal, Hashem, the Perpetual One, etc., you get the idea. It is the Mystery yes but only in the sense that these emanations remain hidden only in the their initial state of flowing. After that definitions called vessels appear.
Inside of these definitions called vessels the pouring continues until there is an overflowing which takes place within the context of that vessel yes but also takes on the new meanings that are inherent both in the container through which the Ayin Sof Or flows and the next ‘generation of container-vessel that is now being filled also to overflowing.
This process is both continuous and self perpetuating in that Creation repeats this paradigm endlessly in infinite variation throughout multiple dimensions of being.
Somewhere along the way what is known as spillage occurs. This is when a vessel instead of naturally overflowing tends to close up upon itself causing it to burst and therefore is cast forth into pieces called ‘klippoth’ in Kabbalah, literally shells of awareness. These shells of awareness have no life of their own being cut off from that perpetual flow but they seek to draw their sustaining influence from those containers are still overflowing siphoning off bits of this divine influence without partaking in the overflowing process.
This siphoning of energy or attention as we shall see is called ‘evil’ since it seeks this energy for itself with no purpose of unification or passing on that energy for inclusion in the overflowing that is really its true nature.
A classic example of this ‘evil’ is a negative thought that keeps cycling in Consciousness. Since it cannot participate in the flow of ‘good’ it seeks to engage the Consciousness with its own limited reflections in effect pulling down Consciousness to its own level for its own purposes. The counter to this pulling down is the modification of attention to only attach itself to good thoughts those that do indeed participate in that divine flow. Once the attention is focused upon ‘good’ these negative or ‘evil’ thoughts have no sustaining influence and they pass away giving their sparks of awareness to the greater whole of ‘good’ which is really what this system of return is all about.
Those vessels that burst because they have become closed then are destined to return all that they have scattered. This is really a part of the Master Plan that includes even the scattered sparks of awareness that have gone astray.
The key for us to understand in all of this is attention is the healing part that we take in Consciousness to restore those sparks by not paying attention to the negativity and then simply letting the process take care of itself throughout our one pointed attention to good. B”H
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