We Cannot Get to There From Here

 When people take seriously the condemnations of the modern world, its various ideologies, its materialism, its addiction to technology and all the rest, they might ask, what do we need to do? How can we get back on a proper spiritual track? The answer is simple. On an individual level, this is possible and a return to first principles with the appropriate beliefs and practices will help to realign the soul with reality. For, make no mistake, the vast majority of human beings today are completely divorced from reality and living in a degraded fantasy world 

And that is why that on a societal level it is no longer possible to get back on track and has not been for some time. Things are just too far gone. As a culture we cannot get to where we should be from where we are now. When something has grown and become established to the degree that modernity has, it cannot be put right. It can only be completely uprooted and then we must start again from scratch, or if not scratch then something not far off. 

This became even more obvious to me than it already was during the course of writing my recent book on the end times. When I examined certain modern ideologies, it was clear that these were too entrenched in the contemporary mind to be dealt with effectively. The mind will have to receive a great shock to exorcise these thought forms which have sunk so deeply into consciousness that they cannot be erased without a massive upheaval. Even when many people turn to spirituality, they take these ideas with them, and see spirituality through the prism of modernity and its ideological assumptions. This is the legacy of centuries of actual or effective materialism, coupled with the degradation of consciousness that occurs in the end times.

No new political movement can save us. Not even a revival of religion could do that. Such things might correct some of the more extreme forms of crazy thought and behaviour, but they cannot at this stage address fundamental problems, other than superficially. 

This presents a dilemma. Does recognising the reality that real change is no longer possible mean we do nothing or should we at least try to do something while understanding that can never really succeed, though it might make some improvements here and there? Everybody must make his or her own mind up on that score. There is no ready-made answer. The basics of life are simple and will come naturally into view when we are faithful to first principles, the chief of which is to love or, at least, acknowledge God and respect his order, both natural and spiritual. If we get that right everything else will fall into place. If we fail in that then nothing will ever be right. It's like trying to keep the outside of the circle in place when you have lost touch with the centre.

I have sometimes been asked in response to a criticism of the modern world, "Well, what would you do to make things better?" All I can do is point out that this is an impossible question to answer. When the rot has set in so deeply there is nothing you can do. You can't say you should revive Christianity or bring back paganism or abolish communism or democracy or feminism or whatever it might be. In the case of the former, their time of spiritual effectiveness on the societal level has passed. In the case of the latter, they are indelible parts of the modern psyche. We cannot return to where we were and any attempt to do so would fail. All we can do is get our individual houses in order and wait for whatever is coming to clean up the mess. Or, as Jesus said, watch and pray.

This is not a counsel of despair but one of promise. This world was never meant to be the main focus of our lives, meaning our lives in the whole. Eventually, this world will be redeemed and raised up into spirit. The whole of matter will be transformed as Jesus's body was at the Ascension. But that is a long way off. For the time being, the world serves mostly as a training ground for the soul, and one of its functions is as a platform to push against in the search for spirit. Therefore, the fact of its imminent large-scale purification is something to look on with hope. Destruction on one level will lead to resurrection on another. When the degraded environment and corrupted human consciousness are purified by what is to come then a new humanity can arise, cleansed of the dirt it has accumulated over the last several centuries, if not millennia.

The Living Image of the Eternal

Truth is beyond form and expression but for religion to be comprehensible it must be grounded in form. Religious forms can take many varieties which approximate to that which they are trying to express to a greater or lesser degree. Some forms capture something of the reality behind them while others distort it, sometimes unacceptably so. The question then arises. What is the best form, the one that comes nearest to revealing the truth that lies behind all genuine religion?

Before answering that, we must accept that different forms suit different people. That is to say, people of different temperaments and from different cultural backgrounds. It would be unrealistic to think that the whole world should follow one particular form any more than that they should speak one language, and it is probably not a good idea either as different forms can express different aspects of truth. None express the whole, even all together can't express more than a tiny fraction of the whole, but they can complement each other by their particular focal points. This may not be necessary from the purely spiritual perspective, but it can be helpful.

No doubt everyone thinks his own religion is best, and it may be for him. On the other hand, it may not. It may simply be a religion one is born into or one that suits one's strengths or weaknesses or prejudices or preconceptions. Over the course of my spiritual life (pompous phrase, but it can't be helped in this context), which is now some 47 years, I have investigated many, I am tempted to say most, spiritual paths. Not as a follower but by reading about them and exploring their forms and practices. It's fascinating to see how human beings have approached the numinous. So many similarities and so many differences. While recognising the validity of many, I have my favourites but there are also some I think are inspired from lower levels, either originally or through infiltration over the years. Some are even a mix of the true and the false. Quite a few are, in fact.

However, there is one clear winner, (I know it's not a competition, but in a way, it is). Obviously, that is Christianity and not so much because of the religion or religions that have arisen in Christ's name but because of him. Christ is the face and form of God, God revealed in a human being, God embodied. And, while we're at it, let us point out that the image of God himself is another form that encapsulates hidden truth. As God the Father, Creator of Heaven and Earth, this image draws the mind and heart up to the realm of pure spiritual light in a way that lesser images do not. The very word 'God' brings together amorphous ideas and feelings and intuitions in the human head and heart, and moulds them into something tangible, something that the mind can latch onto, to which it can respond and with which it can engage.

Jesus Christ is the perfect spiritual form, the one above all others. First of all, because he is a living person, and spiritual reality is personal before it is impersonal - the opposite to what the sophisticated believe. And secondly, because he is the only spiritual figure totally without flaw, without sin as it is said. He reflects the spiritual world without any corrupt influence of this world. You can say that about no one and nothing else. Certainly, there are many other inspiring spiritual figures and philosophies from before the time of Christ and after him. But he is without peer and incomparable in his truthfulness. I do not doubt that non-Christian spiritual approaches can bring their followers to God, and, for that matter, many ostensible Christian ones might fail in that, but Christ is and remains the Way,  the Truth and the Life. He is the revelation of what this excellent essay calls the single, supreme, eternal creator deity or first principle, born into the Jewish race but come for all people.

There is No Hope in This World

 There is no time more spiritually perilous than when you get what you want. In bad times you can more easily turn to God as the world is not offering you anything, but when the world does offer you something, whether that be money, fame, power or even the kind of political success that you believe will make the world a better place, then you need to watch out.

Religion exists to point us to the spiritual. The spiritual, by definition, is not the material even if you say that ultimately all is one. Ultimately, all is one, no doubt, but there is nothing ultimate about our life in a body in this world. Here, there very definitely is a split between the spiritual and the material. We have both within us, and when I say within I do mean that because thought, in the normal sense, is material even if it only exists because of the spiritual. It is possible because we are spiritual beings but in itself it is based on material processes and is incapable of discerning spiritual reality so it belongs to the material world. Thus, we have both the spiritual and the material within us but we are called to overcome the material and submit it to the spiritual, which means the spiritual on its own terms not as it may be viewed or interpreted by the material component of our being.

All true spiritual teachings tell us to renounce this world. Heaven is not here and is not meant to be here so political triumphs will never bring it about. Wasn't that Judas Iscariot's mistake? He thought Jesus was here to defeat the Romans and restore a Jewish kingdom in this world, but Jesus said that his followers would be hated by the world. He didn't say they would be hated by this world or that world but by the world meaning any kind of worldly society. That is because those that follow Jesus see that nothing in this world can lead to eternal life. The very nature of the world is against that, despite its many beauties.

To say there is no hope in this world does not mean there is no hope. In fact, it means just the opposite. There is great hope, wonderful cause for hope, but it is in heaven not here. If you get what you want you can become satisfied or content, but that means that your motivation for finding the true path to heaven is weakened. 

So, when things seem to be going your way, be careful. It is hard for the rich to get to heaven, and riches are not just monetary.

Love of God

 How do you get to Heaven?  It's very simple. Here's how. You must love the Creator more than anything in creation, including yourself. This is the only spiritual path that really counts, and the reason it does is because Heaven is a place of love but real love which is founded in love of God not one of the many lesser imitations we are familiar with in this world and which are mistaken for love, though they are but the shadows of it cast in the created world.

This love is why Jesus is important. It can be difficult to love God because most people simply aren't aware of him except for an idea or a theory. Now, you can love an idea in the sense of being passionate about it but that is not what we are talking about. Spiritual love you can only know when you feel it. Those who don't truly feel it might think they do until they really do. Then they realise that what they thought was love was just a human copy, wonderful in its own way but still a lesser thing.

Jesus is important because, as far as mankind is concerned, he is the face and form of God. It is therefore easier to love Jesus than to love God even though what you are loving in Jesus is actually God. But Jesus brings God down to earth for us and makes him comprehensible.

Love God. That is all it takes, and yet while this is simple it is also very hard for us because we are so distracted by this world, by the things in it and by ourselves. However, there are entry paths to this love which, while not being the proper love of God, help us to find him and therefore to love him. They are the love of truth, of beauty and of goodness. These are, as it were, the manifest forms of God, rather like Jesus, and for some people might be easier ways to begin to know God. They are necessary but not sufficient for you must go beyond even these eventually to know the God the Person who lies behind them as their living source.

Because many people want the gifts of God without really loving him there are many spiritual paths which have been invented to make up for this lack of love. The way of knowledge is one. It is good but not good enough. Meditation. Again, good but not enough on its own. Esoteric techniques of various kinds. Yoga, Tantra and the like. These may bestow higher states of consciousness and even powers, but they will not get you to Heaven without love. With these things but without love you will just become a magician, and what use is that to the soul that wants to know God? You can be a spiritual superman roaming the higher planes and experiencing what seems to be cosmic consciousness, but if you do not have a true and sincere love of God then you are always going to be outside his Kingdom because only love can transfigure the soul and make it pure enough get to Heaven.

Order and Chaos

 I know someone who lives in a state of chaos with nothing put away or even thrown away, and stuff scattered everywhere. She claims this is the sign of a creative person. I know someone else who is obsessive about order and must have everything in its proper place. It causes him actual discomfort to experience mess and untidiness, and if something no longer serves its purpose, he will throw it out. He thinks disorder is the sign of a disorganised and therefore unproductive mind. Unfortunately, they are husband and wife, but then marriage is often an arena for learning needed lessons.

Order and chaos are inseparable companions, partly because each implies the existence of the other but also because creation requires both. Order, which is what creation works towards establishing, can only be built out of chaos using the word in its literal sense of disorganised matter. Chaos is the raw material order requires to appear in form. Without chaos, order has nothing to work with and make structure. But chaos needs order to make something of it. It is only good as a source for order. Left to itself without order to inform it, it is a negative. Therefore, the wife in the example above is wrong. Chaos as disorder is just chaotic. But the husband is also wrong because his excessive order leaves no room for development and growth. It is a sterile thing.

Too much order stifles creativity and freedom, but too much disorder leads to chaos. On the other hand, there needs to be a little disorder in a system for it to evolve, but the point of this evolution is to lead to a higher level of order. Disorder taken on its own terms and not subject to the principle of order is the ground from which evil, decay and death arise, but as chaos, its fundamental state, it is also the ground of all creation.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."

Chaos is the formless and empty earth from which the Spirit of God forms all creation. It is the deep, the waters and the feminine principle which needs the masculine principle to organise it into order. By the same token, the masculine principle needs the feminine principle to bring to life and outer reality the unmanifested idea.

A New Age Prophecy

 In the 20th century many mystics believed that we were about to move into a new age when humanity would shrug off its materialism and  dedicate itself to its proper spiritual mission. There were a number of channelled messages that spoke of this, of varying degrees of credibility it has to be said. But besides these messages from discarnate sources there were also prophets in this world who claimed to have received visions of the future, and one of the more striking of these was from the Bulgarian mystic Peter Deunov who, in 1944 at the age of 80 and just a few days before he died, said he was given an insight into the future whilst in a trance state. It is up to us what we make of this as the psychic and mystic worlds are notoriously unreliable with fiction mixed up with fact, but though Deunov was declared a heretic by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, he was by all accounts a devoted Christian, albeit one influenced by the teachings of Rudolf Steiner hence his difficulties with the official church.

I was recently sent this prophecy due to my current interest in the End Times and reproduce it here without comment other than to say it has at the very least a poetic quality that gives it some kind of authenticity. Actually, I will make one comment. I think that visions of this kind are gleaned from the spiritual world, using that term in a broad sense to mean they are picked up from the higher mental plane where the ideas received exist in symbolic form which the mind of the recipient then translates into words according to his own mental settings. So, it may not be literally true but there is truth in it. Make of that what you will.

“During the passage of time, the consciousness of man traversed a very long period of obscurity. This phase which the Hindus call ‘Kali Yuga’, is on the verge of ending. We find ourselves today at the frontier between two epochs: that of Kali Yuga and that of the New Era that we are entering.

A gradual improvement is already occurring in the thoughts, sentiments and acts of humans, but everybody will soon be subjugated to Divine Fire, that will purify and prepare them for the New Era. Thus man will raise himself to a superior degree of consciousness, indispensable to his entrance to the New Life. 

Some decades will pass before this Fire will come, that will transform the world by bringing it a new morality. This immense wave comes from cosmic space and will inundate the entire earth. All those that attempt to oppose it will be carried off and transferred elsewhere.

Although the inhabitants of this planet do not all find themselves at the same degree of evolution, the new wave will be felt by each one of us. And this transformation will not only touch the Earth, but the whole of the Cosmos.

The best and only thing that man can do now is to turn towards God and improve himself consciously, to elevate his vibratory level, so as to find himself in harmony with the powerful wave that will soon submerge him.

The Fire of which I speak, that accompanies the new conditions offered to our planet, will rejuvenate, purify, reconstruct everything: matter will be refined, your hearts will be liberated from anguish, troubles, incertitude, and they will become luminous; everything will be improved, elevated; the thoughts, sentiments and negative acts will be consumed and destroyed.

Your present life is a slavery, a heavy prison. Understand your situation and liberate yourself from it. I tell you this: exit from your prison! It is really sad to see so much misleading, so much suffering, so much incapacity to understand where one’s true happiness lies.

Everything that is around you will soon collapse and disappear. Nothing will be left of this civilization nor its perversity; the entire earth will be shaken and no trace will be left of this erroneous culture that maintains men under the yoke of ignorance. Earthquakes are not only mechanical phenomena, their goal is also to awaken the intellect and the heart of humans, so that they liberate themselves from their errors and their follies and that they understand that they are not the only ones in the universe.

Our solar system is now traversing a region of the Cosmos where a constellation that was destroyed left its mark, its dust. This crossing of a contaminated space is a source of poisoning, not only for the inhabitants of the earth, but for all the inhabitants of the other planets of our galaxy. Only the suns are not affected by the influence of this hostile environment. This region is called “the thirteenth zone”; one also calls it “the zone of contradictions”. Our planet was enclosed in this region for thousands of years, but finally we are approaching the exit of this space of darkness and we are on the point of attaining a more spiritual region, where more evolved beings live.

The earth is now following an ascending movement and everyone should try to harmonize with the currents of the ascension. Those who refuse to align themselves to this orientation will lose the advantage of good conditions that are offered in the future to elevate themselves. They will remain behind in evolution and must wait tens of millions of years for the coming of a new ascending wave.

The earth, the solar system, the universe, all are being put in a new direction under the impulsion of Love. Most of you still consider Love as an insignificant force, but in reality, it is the greatest of all forces! Money and power continue to be venerated as if the course of your life depended upon it. In the future, all will be subjugated to Love and all will serve it. But it is through suffering and difficulties that the consciousness of man will be awakened.

The terrible predictions of the prophet Daniel written in the Bible relate to the epoch that is opening. There will be floods, hurricanes, gigantic fires and earthquakes that will sweep away everything. Blood will flow in abundance. There will be revolutions; terrible explosions will resound in numerous regions of the earth. There where there is earth, water will come, and there where there is water, earth will come. God is Love; yet we are dealing here with a chastisement, a reply by Nature against the crimes perpetrated by man since the night of time against his Mother; the Earth.

After these sufferings, those that will be saved, the elite, will know the Golden Age, harmony and unlimited beauty. Thus keep your peace and your faith when the time comes for suffering and terror, because it is written that not a hair will fall from the head of the just. Don’t be discouraged, simply follow your work of personal perfection.

You have no idea of the grandiose future that awaits you. A New Earth will soon see the light of day. In a few decades the work will be less exacting, and each one will have the time to consecrate spiritual, intellectual and artistic activities. The question of rapport between man and woman will be finally resolved in harmony; each one having the possibility of following their aspirations. The relations of couples will be founded on reciprocal respect and esteem. Humans will voyage through the different planes of space and breakthrough intergalactic space. They will study their functioning and will rapidly be able to know the Divine World, to fusion with the Head of the Universe.

The New Era is that of the sixth race. Your predestination is to prepare yourself for it, to welcome it and to live it. The sixth race will build itself around the idea of Fraternity. There will be no more conflicts of personal interests; the single aspiration of each one will be to conform himself to the Law of Love. The sixth race will be that of Love. A new continent will be formed for it. It will emerge from the Pacific, so that the Most High can finally establish His place on this planet.

The founders of this new civilization, I call them ‘Brothers of Humanity’ or also ‘Children of Love’. They will be unshakeable for the good and they will represent a new type of men. Men will form a family, as a large body, and each people will represent an organ in this body. In the new race, Love will manifest in such a perfect manner, that today’s man can only have a very vague idea.

The earth will remain a terrain favourable to struggle, but the forces of darkness will retreat and the earth will be liberated from them. Humans seeing that there is no other path will engage themselves to the path of the New Life, that of salvation. In their senseless pride, some will, to the end hope to continue on earth a life that the Divine Order condemns, but each one will finish by understanding that the direction of the world doesn’t belong to them.

A new culture will see the light of day, it will rest on three principal foundations: the elevation of woman, the elevation of the meek and humble, and the protection of the rights of mankind.

The light, the good, and justice will triumph; it is just a question of time. Religions should be purified. Each contains a particle of the Teaching of the Masters of Light, but obscured by the incessant supply of human deviation. All the believers will have to unite and to put themselves in agreement with one principal, that of placing Love as the base of all belief, whatever it may be. Love and Fraternity that is the common base! The earth will soon be swept by extraordinary rapid waves of Cosmic Electricity. A few decades from now beings who are bad and lead others astray will not be able to support their intensity. They will thus be absorbed by Cosmic Fire that will consume the bad that they possess. Then they will repent because it is written that “each flesh shall glorify God”.

Our mother, the earth, will get rid of men that don’t accept the New Life. She will reject them like damaged fruit. They will soon not be able to reincarnate on this planet; criminals included. Only those that possess Love in them will remain.

There is not any place on earth that is not dirtied with human or animal blood; she must therefore submit to a purification. And it is for this that certain continents will be submerged while others will surface. Men do not suspect to what dangers they are menaced by. They continue to pursue futile objectives and to seek pleasure. On the contrary those of the sixth race will be conscious of the dignity of their role and respectful of each one’s liberty. They will nourish themselves exclusively from products of the vegetal realm. Their ideas will have the power to circulate freely as the air and light of our days.

The words “If you are not born again” apply to the sixth race. Read Chapter 60 of Isaiah it relates to the coming of the sixth race, the Race of Love.

After the Tribulations, men will cease to sin and will find again the path of virtue. The climate of our planet will be moderated everywhere and brutal variations will no longer exist. The air will once again become pure, the same for water. The parasites will disappear. Men will remember their previous incarnations and they will feel the pleasure of noticing that they are finally liberated from their previous condition.

In the same manner that one gets rid of the parasites and dead leaves on the vine, so act the evolved Beings to prepare men to serve the God of Love. They give to them good conditions to grow and to develop themselves, and to those that want to listen to them, they say: “Do not be afraid! Still a little more time and everything will be all right; you are on the good path. May he that wants to enter in the New Culture study, consciously work and prepare.”

Thanks to the idea of Fraternity, the earth will become a blessed place, and that will not wait. But before, great sufferings will be sent to awaken the consciousness. Sins accumulated for thousands of years must be redeemed. The ardent wave emanating from On High will contribute in liquidating the karma of peoples. The liberation can no longer be postponed. Humanity must prepare itself for great trials that are inescapable and are coming to bring an end to egoism.

Under the earth, something extraordinary is preparing itself. A revolution that is grandiose and completely inconceivable will manifest itself soon in nature. God has decided to redress the earth, and He will do it! It is the end of an epoch; a new order will substitute the old, an order in which Love will reign on earth.”

Some of this is standard New Age fare which always seems to me to forget that this world exists as a training ground for souls and that the creation of Heaven on Earth will not necessarily help with that process. But certainly the world could be a lot better than it is. There's no doubt about that. Nonetheless, this world exists to prepare us for heaven, not to be heaven until, perhaps, the end of time when it becomes the New Jerusalem and is taken up into Heaven itself. But I don't see that as just around the corner. However, he does say that the earth will remain a terrain favourable for struggle so the sense of a training ground does still exist in some form.

The bit I find the most interesting is the idea that our corrupt state is partly the result of the Earth moving through what you might call a diseased part of the Galaxy and that when we come out of that our own nature will improve. We have been infected by the cosmic environment. There is also the thought that those that do not make the grade will be taken elsewhere to continue with their spiritual evolution, in effect they will have failed their exams and be held back. Deunov says for tens of millions of years which is a chilling prospect. Nonetheless, I think this is correct and that we are coming to a point where we self-select our future with, as far as I can see, only a relatively small minority continuing on this Earth if/when it undergoes purification. One needs to remember  that this prophecy comes from 1944 to appreciate some of the points in context. For example, the elevation of women which has happened but in the wrong way. He also says this will come about in a few decades. It's been 8 decades since then and I would not call that a few but then timing is notoriously unreliable in prophecies. For what it's worth, it does coincide with Indian, Christian and Hopi (Native American) tradition, in that the end times conclude with societal and environmental, even geological, breakdown with a new beginning promised afterwards to a purified and much reduced remnant of humanity, and that time does seem closer than ever.

A New Dawn or a Setting Sun?

 Yesterday was a text book example of the truth of the saying that two wrongs don't make a right (pun intended). The only reason anyone can possibly think we have turned a corner is the contrast between the old and the new. The new may oppose the old but only as East opposes West, and we need to go North.

It's a classic case of the devil playing for both sides. When one side overplays its hand, he has the other side waiting in the wings to take over, and though it may correct some of the excesses of its supposed opponent it doesn't actually do real good in any serious sense. We will continue on the same trajectory, albeit by a slightly more scenic route. I see this as a self-selecting process whereby an individual's true motivation and powers of discernment are put to the test. Don't be deceived by something that may appear not quite as bad as what it replaces into thinking that it is good. It is only there to divert you from the true good and accept a false substitute.