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PURUSHA SUKTHAM
And all that we see in this universe is but his quarter, And the rest three quarters are divine and are immortal..
This cosmos - the full created universe goes far beyond those that are known by five senses and hence beyond our sciences. This world of name and form (nAma-rupa-bheda- jagat) - the material realm is but one fourth part of Purusha. There are three other worlds which are higher dimensions and where beings are immortal. This is a direct description of the Hebrew understanding of the Universe which later was codified in Kaballah.
The worlds are assiyah, yetzirah, beriyah, and atzilut (doing, feeling, thinking, and existing). Each world is filled with living beings with their own type of bodies but with different layers of the soul: nefesh, ruach, neshamah, and chayah (life-force, emotional being, unique soul, and God-spark). These may also be termed the Spiritual World, the Mental World, the Astral World, and the Material World. The Spiritual World is the highest, being the purest in nature or the Primordial Cause, whereas the three worlds which emanate from it are less divine in nature and are in fact reflections, on a descending scale, of the first world.
Four Worlds Judaism
ASSIYAH, (Spiritual World) earth, the objective material world, where we live with our bodies in the physical world of action. This is the world of sensible, concrete facts and their data. Here we are conscious of the physical realm and the laws of nature as we observe them. Here we are aware of being a creation of God. This is the world of duality, in which everything is seen as separate, and subject to cause and effect. Because of this feeling of separateness it is a world of mortality. Death has dominion and meaning only in this realm of physical world. Beings with bodies of flesh live here. Nefesh world. This is the only Manifest world. This is explained in the next verse.
YETZIRAH, (Mental World) water, the World of Formation. Yetzirah is the World of Angels. This is the subjective world of vital feelings; the world of affect, of nuance, of aura, of sensitivity, of visceral and proprioceptive feelings. This is the world of interdependence and relationship. Ruach soul dimension.
BRIYAH, (Astral World) air, the World of Creation. Briah is the World of Archangels. This is the symbolic world of the intellect, of contemplation, of pure thought. Everything is part of a pattern in this world; everything has a meaning. We understand ourselves as being the result of intended, loved, and continuous creation. Here we are commanded to exert ourselves to know and to reach the very edge of what is thinkable and understandable. This is the reality of poetry, wonder, intuition, and visualization. In this world, we can work with symbols and with dreams. Neshama soul aspect.
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