How Do You Know?

This is a question I have been asked many times. The reply below is an expanded version of what I usually say.

Q. How do you know what you say is right and not just the product of your imagination?

A. That is a reasonable question but I would point to several factors which confirm the truth of what is written here though these tend more to the general than the particular. For instance, I have no doubt that basic reality is spiritual, that Jesus Christ is the prime exemplar of that reality, that there is meaning and purpose to life, that demonic activity takes place which seeks to destroy that purpose, that we are living during a period roughly corresponding to the Biblical end times and so on. But a matter like reincarnation, in which I also believe as the means consciousness evolves, is of lesser importance.

So what are these factors? First of all, I have to put my experience with the Masters as detailed in the book shown on the right. Obviously this is a personal thing but I would hope that most people who read the book feel that it has, at least, a certain plausibility and maybe even the ring of truth. These Masters were spiritual beings who spoke with the knowledge of having transcended the limitations of this world and the human form. They had realised their oneness with God. When they spoke they did so from direct experience of a sort that went beyond the need for subjective interpretation. I would like to think that something of that comes through in the book even though it has to do so through a very imperfect medium - me!

Secondly, there is scripture and revelation. Either one believes these things or one doesn't but I cannot see how anyone reading the Bible, specifically the Gospels, can fail to detect that here is the description of something real and, more than that, something holy in the sense of carrying a truth not of this world. Particularly insofar as the figure of Jesus is concerned. The sheer quality of his teaching and the profound beauty of his person leave no room for doubt to a mind that is not too corrupted by this world. Across 2,000 years Jesus is more vividly real than any other person, alive or dead.

Connected to scripture there is tradition. Tradition is the residue of humanity's best understanding about life. Just as the best works of art survive down the ages (generally) and the second rate is weeded out, so humanity's best ideas survive the rigorous examination of time and become tradition, tried, tested and found true. And tradition speaks with one voice of the reality of the spiritual world. Details differ but the fundamental reality of God is confirmed by tradition. It is only the present age, blinded by its own narrow focus, that doesn't see this.

This leads to the next factor, in some respects the most important of all because it is the most personal and the one that goes the deepest. It is intuition. Now clearly that is a vague word which can be used to cover many different things from emotional responses to wishful thinking to half-formed impressions etc. But proper intuitive insight is not a vague thing at all. It is direct knowledge and is a faculty of the mind that begins to develop as you start to go beyond your limited self and align yourself with reality. To be sure, much is called intuition that is not this. It generally comes from people who have begun to be aware of  the intuitive faculty but have not yet developed it enough to be able to discern what comes from their own self and what comes from a deeper level. However that does not alter the fact that real intuitive insight does exist and it is the voice of God within us, just as, in a different way, conscience is too. Intuition is, quite simply, seeing with the mind. Not thinking or feeling but seeing.

Connected to intuition are two other things which I should mention. One available to us all, the other not. The first is common sense. Common sense has been under attack over the last century or so because the increasing intellectual polarisation of humanity has tended to focus the mind on the plane of theory and abstract thought. This can help us to understand what we know but it can also get in the way of real knowing which is replaced by knowledge. We lose connection to common sense and get caught up in ideas which may or may not be based in reality. Common sense tells us that this world is not all there is to life.

The second thing connected to intuition is impression. I was told by my teachers, and I believe this because I have occasionally been conscious of it, that they sought to guide me through impressing thoughts on my mind at a higher spiritual level which I would then have to bring down to the mental level. Thoughts in this connection does not just mean ideas in the conventional sense of that word but living spiritual realities as in the thoughts of God are real things. The truths impressed would need to be interpreted by my brain because they are not given in verbal form, but the main thing required is to interfere with the thought as little as possible. Not to put too much of oneself into it, though it would necessarily have to be expressed in the mental language of the person concerned.

A final confirmation that the points made here about the spiritual world are grounded in reality and not just wild speculation or fantasy on my part is what you might call the signs of the times. It's becoming increasingly apparent that the world today corresponds to descriptions given in Christian, Hindu and other scriptures about the end of an age when connection to spiritual truth is lost and human beings see themselves as existing only in material terms with all the concomitant illusions, misconceptions and overturning of the natural order that brings. The spiritual pole of essence is overshadowed by the material pole of substance. Normally there should be a balance between the two with the latter being seen in terms of the former, but at the end of an age this true state is reversed as substance increasingly dominates essence. Who could deny that this is the current state of affairs? It results in many upheavals as traditional understandings and hierarchies are overturned and new ones are established, based on the false perception of matter being the determining reality. For some it is liberating to be freed from the constraints of the past, but others see this as tragic since it separates us from all that is good and true as well as all that is highest and best in ourselves.

For it should be borne in mind that the constraint of the natural has as its purpose the eventual blossoming of the spiritual. Obviously when these constraints are lifted (the sexual revolution being a prime example), and all attention is focused on the physical plane, there is a great initial sense of freedom. The destruction of traditional forms releases an energy which is very exciting to begin with but this is soon dissipated and the inevitable hangover follows the binge. And then you have nothing left. You're like the profligate young man who blows his inheritance in riotous living and ends up in poverty. This is happening to us for we have squandered our spiritual inheritance and, as a result, we do now live in great spiritual poverty, all the worse for being largely unrecognised. All this was predicted, and these predictions support the thesis of those who say that we must turn to a proper spiritual understanding both of the world and of ourselves if we would find a way out of our impasse. There really is nowhere else to go.

These are the things on which I base the writings here but ultimately the question posed above is of secondary importance. What really matters is whether what is said here calls forth a response in you, the reader. If it does, that can only mean that, on some level, you already know it.