Where is the Garden of Eden?

When Kabbalists talk about bringing the gamar hatikun, the end of the correction, also known as messiah, they are not talking about some great change that will one day happen to our world. The change already happened. Messiah is here. We just don’t see or feel it.

The Zohar explains that at any given moment, the perfected version of our world is always right here in front of us. What we see as pain, what we experience as darkness, is an illusion. It is not the true essence of reality. Perfection, completion and fulfillment are with us all the time. We do not see it because our eyes and hearts are closed.

There is an important spiritual reason why this is so. Imagine you were walking in a sand storm, and the dirt and filth was coming up all around you, whipping into your face. Naturally you would close your eyes and mouth into order to protect yourself, right?

The same is true in the spiritual realm. When there is a tremendous amount of darkness around a person, it’s essential that the Creator closes our eyes and hearts. When we are involved in a life that is selfish – and we all are to one degree - we draw upon ourselves all kinds of darkness and negativity. If the Creator allowed our eyes and hearts to remain open during these times, like the sand, it would damage our essence.

Therefore, as protection for us, the Creator closes our eyes and hearts so that the damage that one can do to his soul through his selfish actions becomes greatly diminished.

The understanding here is that the closing of our eyes and our hearts is not a punishment. It’s a favor. And how shut or open they become is dependent on how we live our lives. To the degree our lives are based on selfishness, to that degree our eyes and our hearts will remain sealed.

Conversely, the more we live our lives in the way of the desire to share with and give to others, the more we allow our eyes and our hearts to be opened. And as the Zohar explains, this is the only thing necessary for us to complete our process in this world and to bring the world to the gamar hatikun, the end of the correction.

There’s a story of a kabbalist who ascended to the Upper Worlds one night while sleeping, and asked a group of souls where to find the path to the Garden of Eden.

They told him to follow a specific path. He started walking down this road, a very simple, plain road, when suddenly to his right he saw a few souls sitting and studying together. He asked them, “How do I get to the Garden of Eden?”

“You are already here,” they told him.

“This is it? A gravel road with some grass on the side? This isn’t what I expected,” he exclaimed.

“The Garden of Eden is not an external place. It is within you.”

The idea is the Garden of Eden, the gamar hatikun, the messiah - it’s all here right now. We just do not allow ourselves to see it. The only thing the world is waiting for is our eyes and hearts to open so we may experience what is here now. We don’t have to run out and change the world. We just have to open up and ask – beg - the Creator to give us the ability to open our eyes and hearts so that we may experience what is here, right now.

Strengthening Our Blessings

For most of us there is a disparity between the blessings we have and the joy we receive from those blessings. The question is, what causes this disparity?

The Zohar (foundational text of Kabbalah) reminds us this problem has been around for a long time. It surfaced in one of the earliest biblical stories, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. At that time, according to the Bible, Adam and Eve were able to eat from any of the trees of the Garden except for one, known kabbalistically as The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

It is written that the snake (representing the dark side of our nature), approached Eve and began planting seeds of doubt in her mind, “So you can’t eat from any of the trees?”

“No, no, no,” responded Eve. “We can eat from all the trees except this one.”

The snake continued to badger her until her lack became her only focus.

Kabbalah teaches that this process is one many of us go through – although we have many blessings in our lives, we seem to focus on the one or two areas in which we believe we are lacking. When we start to focus away from the blessings we have, it’s as if a veil is drawn, blocking out the blessings and Light we can draw from what we already possess.

This week, we first have to understand this reality. There is a constant voice or force that’s going to try to get us to focus away from all the blessings we have and to focus us only on the areas we are lacking. This voice is coming from the dark side of our nature.

Second, we have to understand that it is our responsibility to fight this tendency. This means telling ourselves, “I am going to forget about that one area of lack, and I am going to focus even more strongly on, and reawaken even more appreciation for, the blessings I already have.”

Spiritually, this consciousness awakens more Light, blessings, and fulfillment to flow from all areas of our lives.

You can attain this consciousness by refocusing on the blessings you do have. Doing so allows them to shine and fulfill you in newer and greater ways. The underlying idea is that the blessings you already have in your life can give you so much more fulfillment than they currently give because you will appreciate and focus on them that much more.