Imaginary Boundaries & Freedom

Freedom. Throughout the course of history we see country after country and culture after culture engaging in battle after battle and war after war all in the pursuit of Freedom. Nothing seems as repugnant to the very nature of mankind as to be oppressed by a force outside of their control that in any way whatsoever restricts individual freedom. Where does this sense of the need for freedom begin? How do we become free or know if we are actually free?

 The concept of freedom implies that we need to be free from something. There has to be an “us” and a “them”; good guys and bad guys. So what do we do? We begin drawing lines and creating boundaries. These probably started as territories, the creation of an imaginary line on the earth and everything inside this line is mine or part of my group and everything outside of the lines are not part of me or my group. Years pass and eventually we have cities, states and nations, all with their neat imaginary borders.

 Religions evolved and they too became very adept at creating boundaries. Boundaries based on beliefs. If you believe such and such a thing and act in such and such a way then you will fall within the boundary of our religion. If not, you are not accepted. So many different religions, which all were creating their own space and none being particularly tolerant of the other.

 There is one particular imaginary boundary that is accepted by most of us and rarely recognized as imaginary. “Everything inside the boundary of my skin is me and everything on the outside of my skin is not me.” This is a widely accepted concept. You would be hard pressed to find a person on the street who would disagree. It is so obvious, is it not?

 Many mystical traditions would say this is not so obvious, but let’s leave them aside and turn to modern physics and Quantum Theory.   Early in the 20th century, scientists were engaged in the pursuit of finally discovering the basic building block of the Universe. The smallest particle within the atom itself, from which all matter, is constructed. They felt confident that after years of development, they had the instrument they needed, the microscope of all microscopes, to view this infinitely small particle.

What they actually found was quite a surprise and as one scientist put it, “it was as if you woke up one morning and instead of a hand, you had a lobster claw!” What they found was that the basic building block did not exist. There was no such thing as the tiniest possible unit of matter from which all other matter is built.  Existence is a wave of infinite possibilities all intertwined and interconnected. Existence is boundless, seamless and whole. There are no boundaries. The atoms and molecules you consider to be in solid form as your physical body have no solidarity at all and they are freely mixing with all the atoms and molecules outside what you call your body. There is a scientific notion called the butterfly effect that says if a butterfly sneezes on Mars, it will affect us here on Earth.  

If this is all true, then why can’t we feel it? Authentic Kabbalah tells us that we do feel it – we just don’t recognize the connection. All of the troubles in the world today – the financial crisis, violence of all types, depression and drug use – are the result of us fighting against this interconnection of humanity. Since we don’t understand the laws of interconnection, we don’t understand the result of violating them. If we jump out of a window, we expect gravity to pull us to the ground. We accept the consequence as inevitable. We must reach the same level of understanding about the laws of interconnected systems so that we can accurately interpret the results of violating them.

 For thousands of years, Kabbalah has told us that existence is Unity and that we are all connected as parts to a whole or as organs to a body. This interconnection is the fundamental law of Nature. The study of Kabbalah is a scientific, methodological approach that instructs us on how to develop the senses to perceive the laws of an interconnected system. Once we can understand these laws, then we can learn how to work with them for the benefit of all. We will no longer unwittingly do the equivalent of jumping off a ten story building and expecting to go up. We can stop the painful consequences of our actions. Then we will be able to find where freedom truly lies.