Introductory Course to Kabbalah - Lesson 2 - The Sixth Sense

Introductory Course to Kabbalah - Lesson 2 - The Sixth Sense
By Michael Laitman, Ph.D

The Sixth Sense

• Are there people born with the sixth sense?



• What is the difference between a Kabbalist and a fortune teller, or people possessing special psychic powers?



• Was Nostradamus a spiritual man?



• Is it preferable to know that tomorrow will be bad, or to receive the power to create a different "tomorrow"?

What happens to people that are born with the sixth sense?

In reality, there is no such thing as people born with the sixth sense. There are sensitive, receptive people, who are pure from birth, for example, Boff Lessing in Russia. He was a well known Jew from Poland who used to appear in theatres and all kinds of places. He was able to tell one's entire future and entire past. He predicted in advance when he was going to die, the day, the date and so on. These facts are widely accepted and there are many such examples throughout history. But this is different than being a Kabbalist. The Christians also have prophetic people such as Nostradamus. Psychic abilities do not indicate somebody's spiritual level. This comes from fineness, without the opening of the sixth sense, stemming out of the purity of the soul.

We can compare ourselves to a black box, which is all feeling. So through five openings, the souls feel this world, and become refined. In this shell of the soul, there is a certain measure of coarseness, and it is so sensitive, so refined, that through the light we sense the light all around it, called the Surrounding Light. Accordingly, it has a certain kind of sensation that transmits what is happening and what is going to happen. Usually these sensations do not transcend this world. That is to say that that he can tell you what was and what will be in this world only. He can predict the future and help people by using all kinds of energies or similar things – there are all sorts of techniques in our world. But they do not raise man upwards, from the level of a human being to the level of the Creator. All in all they give man a little more information about his earthly, biological existence.

This is similar to animals and beasts being able to sense what is going to happen tomorrow. They can predict natural phenomena such as earthquakes, hurricanes and storms a few days before they occur. This ability is also inside our body, with some people being more sensitive than others. For example, a Bedouin lives close to the land and senses more of nature than an urban dweller.

We could have also sensed it some thousand or two thousands years ago, but today we have lost this sensitivity because of the development of technology, all the techniques and scientific progress.

In other words these are things that do not belong to the sixth sense. I am not interested because it does not help me. Even if I know more, or I know less, I am going to live and die anyway and nothing will come of it.
It's said that it is better to know less… so we do not occupy ourselves with it.
In order to emerge from this world of the five senses to a wider feeling, called "the sixth sense" I need outside help. The question is – do I have to wait for the awakening from above in order to begin developing it?

Very good question! I have descended from the Creator to a level below the barrier (Machsom) where I feel myself alive as a person. I'm living in a box or vessel with five senses. What needs to occur now? Does something special have to suddenly happen to me that will initiate the development of the sixth sense?
There are seven billion people like me – walking and talking boxes. Everybody has a "Reshimo", a spiritual "gene" waiting to develop. If we connect all seven billion people, we can build a chain linked by spiritual "genes" that vary in size, strength and intensity.

It follows that there is a queue, according to which genes are beginning to act and to speak inside a person. For example, you are already sitting here today. However, your neighbor is still sitting in front of the television with a beer and will arrive here in another year or two. It will speak inside him after a while.
What does it depend on? It depends on the Light coming from above getting bigger all the time. Besides, all the people in the world who are sitting there right now, just like you, are also drawing these Lights. By doing this they are creating an atmosphere in this world by which more and more people are drawn, and are sensing. Already you are creating an environment which enables these spiritual genes to also awaken in others. Even if their time has not come yet, they nevertheless awaken today because you've drawn an additional illumination toward this world. So you are – what we call – speeding up the times.

I feel the surrounding environment through all my senses. Without the sixth sense I desire all the pleasures of this world. This sixth sense, the spiritual gene, the point in the heart or the beginning of the spiritual soul – it feels only the Spiritual Light. This is what it wants; this is what it longs for. So it is this desire that now brings you here, and here you receive a taste of the Light. Through this enlightenment, the desire will slowly start to grow, and then it will grow some more.

It is growing, until this soul, this sixth sense through which you feel is beginning to be stronger than all of the other five senses together. The moment you are coming to the stage where you agree and identify with this sixth sense, you will want to live solely through it. The moment you achieve this, your entire soul is drawn upwards. However, you continue to live in this world only because one’s physical body has to exist, and take care of its basic needs. But once the whole soul has risen above, at that moment the sixth channel is opened for you. From then on you have free admission and an unrestricted feeling. This means that one is crossing the barrier or that this barrier does not exist for him.

And through studying and while studying, we have to think about it all the time. It does not matter what you will study. You will study all kind of things, not necessarily exactly connected to it. We learn about the building of the Worlds and all kinds of things being done there, including details that are usually not so relevant.

Kabbalists could have written to us about these things, but did not for a reason. They could have written for us a hundred thousand volumes. As it is, we have a lot: six volumes of "The Study of the Ten Sefirot" is not insubstantial. But on what did the Kabbalists touch, and what did they do? They indicated to us, they wrote to us only of those places that are like some kind of crossroad, where the sources of the Surrounding Lights special to us are accumulating. And that is why it is worthwhile for us to study what they wrote. It is not at all important how much one knows. You are passing over them and then you draw Lights. And if you are thinking with the intention of really getting to those places from where the Lights are descending upon you, then – indeed – you have a mutual working, and then it comes as assistance.
And following us, billions will come.

How does someone who has crossed the barrier feel?

This is a real problem. There are some that come to me and say – "I'm already in the Infinity. There are many like these – it is no laughing matter. If one says so, that is how one feels. That his feeling is wrong, is another matter altogether, but how can you prove it to him? He feels it. Sometimes I have to look at such people, and I have to consider if I should tell them the truth or not. To live with such a sweet illusion, is very good. And indeed it's also written – "don't put an obstacle in front of the blind". Meaning – if someone does not see, it is forbidden to put something in front of him which will make him stumble and fall. But if indeed he is living in the wrong environment, far away someplace … Now, for example, I'm invited to Australia – there are some people there that want to study Kabbalah. Let's say that somebody like that lives there without support, he has nothing, not our books, etc. Do I have to begin telling him that he is in hell, that he has not even begun to know anything, and he does not understand where he is … this is a big question.

So, how will we really know? Just like he's wrong, I could also be wrong.
And the opposite also – people come to me weeping "Who am I? What am I? I am nothing". And maybe not. Maybe they are already in a good degree, and do not feel it? It is definitely a problem.

To a person that does not live in spirituality, it is impossible to explain what spirituality is, simply because he has no tools. It is like trying to explain to a blind person the color of the sky, or to explain to a deaf person some sound. How can they understand if they do not know about this sense? And another thing: someone who is in spirituality, how does he know that he indeed is there? He knows it by what he reads in books and it starts to be the real life for him. This means that he can live inside it, in the same way that we live in this world. It means that if I act, if I bestow – I feel a reaction. I can measure it very precisely, in the same way that I would use a "measuring tape" in this world. My feelings, what I receive, with whom I work, in what way I work, what relation do I have with the Creator, the Upper Power. In short, man is not floating in clouds… If two Kabbalists are speaking, they are using a common language. But if one of them wants to hide, then he hides from the other. It is not like they always see each other. There are many other things in the working with the Sixth Sense, with the knowledge the Creator, I simply do not want to confound you. We will speak about this slowly and as much as possible, I will describe it so that it will be understood.

For now I can say only one thing: for the person who learns Kabbalah in the right way, by the teachings of Baal HaSulam and Rabash, it's impossible to live in some illusion and imagine himself in the Infinity, floating away in spiritual worlds and meeting ghosts. Our work is very technical, precise, and the method is very practical. The person is standing with both legs on the ground and has to use virtually all his powers. He will need all the means he has in this world, positive traits and less desirable attributes. Only through this effort will he achieve a revelation of the Creator. So he has no chance of floating; on the contrary, he will always feel himself grounded.