BEYOND THE HORIZON

From the moment a person is born, there is a proclivity within him, to want to discover as many things as possible. This inquisitiveness is depicted in many shapes and forms within everyone. This measure of curiosity can be baffling to the observer, who may be wondering, how can a new-born baby have such traits as being able to smile on his first day of arrival, trying to move to the left and to the right, making sounds as if it has something to tell everyone? Whether or not the sounds and gestures it makes is another language, we may not know, yet it may even be a whole new reality to discover altogether.

Our sages write that, man is a small world, meaning all reality is inside of man. So what is this quality within us that never seems to allow us any rest from discovering things beyond what we already know? This spark that always glows in constant yearning for things beyond our grasp.

This desire to see beyond what seems to be an end, yet never unending, the closer we get to it. Just like standing on a beach and gazing at the sea, the horizon always looks to be within our reach, but when we try approaching this illusionary line in a vessel we never seem to arrive at it. Only to realise that we end up with similar horizons in the direction of the north, south, east and west of our location on the ocean. Such is the vastness of what we are always yearning to discover. It is just like the qualities that every normal person yearns for, happiness, joy, fulfillment, pleasures of all sorts. They almost always seem simple to our perception. We do our best to reach and grasp them only to discover that they just fizzle out into thin air when we seem to have grasped them.

Nothing seems to last for more than a moment and then we are left with an empty vessel that keeps craving for more happiness, joy, fulfillment and all the different sorts of pleasures we seem to be chasing all the time. Our sages have written about this endless reality that needs to be discovered beyond each one’s horizon.

According to our great sage Baal HaSulam in his incredible book that describes the upper world, Talmud Eser Sefirot, he writes that in our world of perception,

“It is difficult for a novice, for they perceive matters by means of corporeal boundaries of time, space, change and exchange. However, the authors only used those as signs to point to their Upper Roots.”

[TES, Chapter 1, Part 1(3)]

This points to the fact that every corporeal depiction is nothing but a branch that only extends from an upper root, leaving us with no option but to seek the root of that which gets depicted to us. According to the prophets, it is written,

”…for they shall all know me from the smallest to the greatest of them…”

(Yirmiyah 31:33).

This refers to the whole of humanity and is a clear indication that,this endless reality is mandatory for everyone to discover. Which means, we have to invest time and effort in fulfilling this inherent inner need within everyone.

To discover the general system of nature, understand it and know our role within it. We are lucky to be born in such a generation as this, where it is comparatively easy, compared to past generations, to discover this bigger picture through all the authentic sources, great teachers and great environments that are readily available to anyone with an awakening and a desire to discover the purpose of creation. These circumstances are there to serve us. The system awaits each one of us according to each one’s degree of inner development and we must take advantage of all that is currently available to us in order to discover and attain this endless perception.