Upper Realm and Lower Realm

Steven Pressfield looks at worthy and unworthy thoughts:

I’ve been taking classes back home in Mussar (pronounced moo-SAHR), the code of ethics and spiritual discipline developed by the Kabbalistic rabbis in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The teacher is Rabbi Mordecai Finley. He talks a lot about “the upper realm” and “the lower realm.” The upper realm is our higher nature, spirit/heaven/”neshama”/the soul. The lower realm is that ball bearing clattering around in my skull.

I wake up in the lower realm. That seems to be my default setting. I have to claw my way out of it. Here are the ways that work for me: love, physical exercise, service, generosity or kindness to others. And work.