From the perspective of totality, the individual soul is not only the organ of perception but also the organ of realization. There would be no awareness or experience of realization without the individual consciousness. Many teachings have recognized the significance of individual consciousness. One of the most obvious examples is the Sufi tradition. Ibn Arabi, a major figure considered the Grand Sheikh of the Sufis, wrote, “God needs the individual soul just as much as the individual soul needs God.” For many people in the thirteenth century, and maybe even now, that is blasphemy; God doesn’t need anything. But the Sufis understand the soul as the organ of perception and action in the world. That is why they think the complete human being has one foot in the nondual and one foot in the dual, straddling both worlds—“in the world but not of it.” From what I understand, some schools of Kabbalah believe that God created the universe specifically for the individual soul, that the individual soul is so important that the whole universe was created for its sake. – Runaway Realization: Living a Life of Ceaseless Discovery, Ch. 9