Three stages of “lights” and “vessels” resulting from the lights which emanated from Adom Kadmon.
Olam Ha’Akudim is the first “world” to result from the single initial vessel created by the vapor which emanated from the “mouth” of Ak, as explained above. In this world, all of its ten “lights,” its ten sefirot, which also emanate from the “mouth” of Ak, are all contained within its one single vessel. For this reason, this world is called Akudim(“binding”), for all of its lights are “bound” together in one vessel.
In the human soul this is as to say that all of one’s intellectual and emotional attributes possess only one way or manner to express themselves. We might compare this to an infant who is limited by one word (or by crying) to express all of his varied feelings.
The lights, unable to “settle” well into the one vessel, enter into a “dynamic” referred to as mati v’lo mati, literally “reaching and not reaching.” The lights descend from the “mouth” of Ak to enter the vessel of Akudim and then “about-face” to (partially) ascend back to their source in the “mouth” of Ak, and so, back and forth forever.