The Pain of Exile

 Every person who has any real spiritual sensibility suffers from being in this world, and the more sensibility you have, the more you suffer. As much as you may love certain aspects of this world, you know it is not your real home. For that matter, the 'you' you appear to be in this world is not the real you either. You know there is a greater self somewhere beyond the one you experience in the here and now.  There is always this existential ache but you are fortunate for it is this that drives you to seek out deeper levels of truth than what the world has to offer, even in most of what it provides in terms of religion.

Your spiritual pain has another purpose too, one beyond the impetus towards personal growth. This world is sunk in darkness and separated from its source. The suffering of those who are aware of the soul helps lighten some of that darkness by aiding in reconnection. This is because it is a transmuting element that opens up the world through you as a part of the world to the higher spiritual that you can sense. Therefore, whenever you may feel particular pain or anguish know that you are bringing light into the world through that pain because you are, in however small a degree, piercing the shell of materialism that surrounds the totality of human consciousness. You are letting some light into the world. While you are in the world you are part of it and as a part that is somewhat conscious of higher reality you help to bring that reality into the world as a whole. In this way your pain helps in the healing of the world which may be a small comfort but should be some consolation. You are serving a purpose beyond yourself.

Those who have a foot in both worlds can act as channels between the two in a manner that benefits and uplifts, though they may not know it, many souls on the cusp of spiritual awakening.

Why pain, why suffering is the cry of humanity to God. Usually there is no answer and that causes the faith of many to fail. But if you looked on the fact of pain and suffering as evidence that this is not your natural state, and used it as a motivation to seek that state, you might be better reconciled to it. I am not saying this justifies or fully explains suffering, but the deepest love comes from the knowledge of suffering which breaks open the self. God himself suffers through his incarnation in matter and yet he joyously gives himself so that his creation might grow and become more like him.

The topic of initiation is one which the modern world, egalitarian, democratic, materialistic, has quite forgotten. However, in many traditional societies it was an important concept which could be applied on a variety of levels from the everyday, the movement from boyhood to manhood, for instance, to the deeply spiritual. Fundamentally, initiation means the transition to a different mode of consciousness and it always involves a kind of death. In other words, there is no initiation without suffering and the further one progresses on the spiritual path, the truer this is. The suffering comes about as part of the outgrowing of a previous phase of being and indicates you are being prepared to move to a higher phase. Suffering leads to death which in turn leads to rebirth. There is no proper initiation without suffering so let those who do suffer spiritually understand that this is a sign they are being prepared for a new and higher state of being.

Be Cheerful

Notwithstanding all the doom and gloom relating to the unprecedented times we are living through we have a lot to be cheerful about. For a start, God exists. That rather puts everything else in perspective. God exists and he has prepared wonders and glories for us beyond imagination if we are prepared to receive them. That does require a few concessions from us but these concessions really only amount to admitting we are sick and taking the cure.

If you sometimes feel overwhelmed by the world and personal suffering please remember this. Everything that goes wrong, or appears to go wrong, in your life is a spiritual opportunity. Whether it is a matter of ill health or monetary troubles or personal problems of whatever sort, there is a lesson to be learned. Sometimes it is a hard lesson but the wise man sees that whatever life throws at him there is something he can take from it to advance a little closer to God. It is a cliché that behind the clouds there is always a brightly shining sun but it's true. And what do clouds do? They bring rain which promotes growth. This is what suffering also can do in our world if we react rightly to it.

Now, I know that many people will dispute this and say that suffering seems purposeless but I do not claim that God sends this suffering. I am merely saying that we can use suffering to deepen our awareness of God. I am not making the glib assertion that suffering doesn't matter but I do assert that it can be, if we allow it, a means of stripping away the resistance that we are always putting up against God. Jesus told us that if we wished to follow him we would have to take up the cross. The current era is a wonderful opportunity to do just that. If you lived an ideal life in an ideal society you might not have the impetus to develop spiritually in the way you do now at a time of massive spiritual loss.

Cheerfulness is really a form of hope which is one of the three theological virtues, theological meaning in this sense that they are given by grace more than personal attainment or moral rectitude- even though grace only comes to those who allow themselves to be open to it. Hope can be defined as complete confidence in God which is something that comes through complete faith in God. This faith is not just intellectual but the result of a will that has given itself over to the transcendental reality of the divine and this should eventually result in the third theological virtue which is charity. Again, this is misunderstood because charity in a spiritual sense is very different from the more conventional secular meaning which is a mixture of good will and empathy. Spiritual charity is rooted above all in the love of God and the resultant love of man coming from that love of God. Man is not loved for his own sake but for his spiritual reality. This is very important because it means that charity, properly understood, works for the spiritual development of man not his earthly benefit. Jesus said, "If you love me, keep my commandments." That is charity.

Hope is very necessary at the moment. It will enable us to both see the darkness and go beyond it. You need to see the darkness but you also need to see there is light behind it. This is not a false optimism because it does not look for salvation in this world. But it knows that there is salvation in the world  beyond from all the vicissitudes of this world and it looks forward with confidence to that bright new day.

Humanism

Humanism which, in one form or another, is the assumed belief system of the modern era is fundamentally anti-human. Despite its avowed aim of ennobling man, it actually degrades him because it denies that in him which raises him beyond the natural world. Its rejection of God takes away our status as a spiritual being come to Earth and at a stroke abolishes the sense of higher and lower (closer to God or further away from him), reducing the human soul to a mere by-product of material forces. Then, with its goal of seeking to eradicate suffering, humanism isolates man in this world, banishing him from his true home in the spiritual realm. This is because the reality of tragedy in this life which so offends the humanist comes from the fact that we are part animal and part angel. It is the conflict between these two aspects of our being that is responsible for suffering at a level beyond the purely physical. If you get rid of tragedy, you get rid of the spiritual. It is obviously not wrong to address the fact of suffering but to seek to remove the possibility of it altogether as seems to be the humanist end goal would be to kill the human soul. This is not meant as an excuse to ignore suffering but an attempt to show the inner cause and even, up to a point, spiritual necessity of it. Suffering is mysteriously tied up with love. If you remove the possibility of the one you also remove the possibility of the other. It is possible that we only love to the degree that we either have suffered or are able to suffer. I have often remarked on the fact that the faces of the people I regard as the most spiritually aware are those that have suffering etched into them. Suffering gives depth, not inevitably but it can do depending on how one reacts to it.

When Man tries to become more than Man by himself he becomes less than Man. Without the idea that he is a son of God, in his deepest nature a being not of this world, he can never go beyond himself. And yet the essence of true humanity is that we can go beyond our earthly selves. That reality lies behind all our greatest achievements and best ideas of ourselves and our place in the universe. However, if we are to go beyond ourselves we cannot do that as ourselves as we experience ourselves to be now. We have to see ourselves as spiritual beings not earthly ones. The great mistake of many religious people is to think that they can take their earthly self, their normal human self, intact to heaven.  Not so. All spiritual teachers who know what they are talking about have proclaimed that it is not change but transformation we need. In the humanist conception of man transformation is impossible because the human being is a material being only. Matter cannot change into spirit unless spirit is already present as the underlying reality.

Humanism has led to the smashing of the hierarchy of good. We no longer recognise the higher as higher or the lower as lower because we no longer recognise God as God and what the reality of God actually means. Without God as the highest reality the ladder of being is levelled to the ground and qualitative differences are negated. Humanism, which ostensibly sought to raise man, has only succeeded in dragging him down. Looking at the present situation in the world that process is still taking place. We are being dragged further down. If man does not know himself to be potentially a god does he then become just another beast? It would seem from current events that may be precisely what happens.

Some humanists think we will evolve to a higher state of consciousness but fail to understand that  evolution in this sense only brings out what is already there. It doesn't come from nothing as the higher cannot come from the lower. Even more foolish, indeed inhuman, are the transhumanists who imagine that by melding man and machine they can create a higher being. If they ever succeed in this unholy operation they will find they have only created a living hell.

Human beings have tried innumerable ways to reach heaven without acknowledging the reality of God and Christ because they have not been willing to make the sacrifice this entails. But it is a good sacrifice that only requires the giving up of our spiritual sickness. The unrepentant ego is like a cancer and it must be cut out. There is some pain in this but the alternative is death. Humanism is the path that leads to death. Yes, man is a noble creature with unlimited potential but only when he takes his place as a son of God. Without God man is nothing but a vainglorious braggart swollen with self-importance but inwardly empty.

Trials on the Path

I want to say a few words about something the Masters told me on more than one occasion during the times they spoke to me. What they said was words to the effect (and I am not quoting verbatim here as in the book but from memory and in my own words though the sense is theirs) that, "You will be subjected to extreme provocation at certain times in your life. This is because the dark forces always attack those who seek to tread the spiritual path but it is also to test your ability to remain calm and not react because of pride or self-will. Accept these attacks humbly even if you believe them to be unreasonable and unjust."

I am not mentioning this here because of a personal situation but for more universal reasons because I think this kind of thing happens to everyone who tries to lead a life in which spiritual concerns come first. You will be attacked. Perhaps by outsiders, colleagues or perhaps by friends and even family. The attacks will possibly contain elements of truth but truth blown up out of proportion and with no sense of a more balanced point of view. We all have faults. These will be homed in on and used to completely define your personality as though the faults were all it were. Sometimes the whole point will be that the attacks are clearly totally unreasonable. This is to get you to react with self-righteous indignation. The fact that you are right will be used to deceive you into thinking that your reaction is right which, of course, it isn't.

I think the only solution when faced with personal attacks is to remember how Jesus behaved when he was attacked in this manner. He remained calm and said nothing. He did not try to justify himself. He did not pity himself even when his friends either abandoned him or actually turned on him. Nothing was more unjust than what he had to endure. 

But he was Jesus, you might say. We can't live like that! Yes, we can. We can certainly try to do so. In fact, we must do so. That was the example he set, the example was specifically for us to follow. He was not doing anything that his followers could not do as the early martyrs demonstrated. It is highly unlikely that we will be called upon to do anything as dramatic as them but we will be personally traduced. This may be on account of our beliefs but it may also be for who we are or how we behave. Anyone who sincerely wishes to follow Christ is stepping out of the mainstream and bringing completely different rules to the game. They might seem exacting, intolerant, critical, judgemental (in the world's eyes) and they might be condemned on just these grounds. But we have to stand firm while always remembering that it should be our behaviour that judges the world more than our words by which I mean that those who would follow Christ must set a personal example.

The dark forces have a lot of power in the world today, partly because they are unacknowledged and their way of working unrecognised. They can act through those close to us, professionally or personally. But God can bring good out of evil and this is one of those tests that burn out self-concern from our character and enable us to turn to God more fully. It has to be said, too, that sometimes something in the attack may have an element of truth to it and we would do well to see that even if the bulk of it is unjust. 

Free Will and Evil

Does everything that happens do so in accordance with God's will?  Or, to put it another way, is evil part of the plan for the unfoldment of spiritual consciousness?

People have long struggled to make sense of why there is evil in the world if God is both loving and omnipotent. It seems to many that either he doesn't care about the evil or he is unable to stop it, neither of which is very reassuring. The traditional Christian response is that human beings fell at one point early on in their history, and evil came into the world through the misuse of free will. If you want to have a fully conscious and free good then you have to have the possibility of evil as well. I think this is correct as far as it goes but it doesn't answer the question completely for, after all, if we take the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden seriously (I don't mean literally), then we must ask what was the serpent doing there in the first place? Clearly evil was already up and running.

God creates a universe that is properly alive. What this means is that he creates beings who are free because only in this way can real love and real goodness be expressed. Only by doing this can God have a world which is created but also creates itself and so is more interesting to him. The free will of created beings is absolutely essential to this end. However, according to the scriptures, one of the greatest of created beings, a mighty angel, rebelled against God's plan for creation and dragged many other angels down with him. These demons constantly war against the Creator. They have corrupted the natural world and also humanity and they continue to do that. What is their aim? Why should any being rebel against God? The answer usually given is pride but I imagine it is more complicated than that. Love of power, the desire to be worshipped themselves, hatred of a goodness to which they cannot match up because of their wrong choices will all have played a part in their downfall and will continue to ensure a lack of repentance.

What all this amounts to is that this world is a damaged environment due to the activity of these fallen powers. Now, God could eradicate their influence by speaking a single word. He could banish all suffering and return to the world to a pristine innocence. But that would effectively mean destroying the world. Once God has given free will to his creation, he cannot withdraw it. If he could, it would not have been really given in the first place. A conditional free will, one dependent on making the right choices, is not free will at all. So, God is all loving and he is omnipotent but he has resigned some of his power and given it to his creatures in the form of free will. To get back that power, which he could do if he wanted, would mean returning his creation to the complete reflection of himself and he does not want that. He wants it to have its own individuality so that eventually (this is my notion, I'm not sure if it is orthodox) it may be his loving bride. That is what this whole process of creation and unfoldment through time is all about. 

There is, therefore, no contradiction between God being loving and omnipotent. His omnipotence is total but voluntarily and necessarily restricted so that we might have some power which is essential if we are to be real individuals.

Jesus ransomed the world from the devil who had usurped this earthly kingdom from its creator. Whether the devil had originally been assigned a vice-regent position which he abused or whether he, as it were, stole the world is not clear. What is clear is that he took it over, and it needed the Incarnation to put things right. Not that they are right yet because that depends on humanity's full acceptance of spiritual truth but the groundwork for the redemption and salvation of the world has been laid. Satan's power has been overturned and he is now, hard as it may be to believe, on the defensive. But, of course, as is obvious, he still has great power because we are still so recalcitrant to truth.

The conclusion here is that the evils of the world are mostly caused by the dark powers whom we aid and abet by responding to evil within ourselves. God can use evil to bring about good but this is not a justification for evil which is wholly bad and not part of God's original intention for his creation. Our suffering in this world is therefore not ordained by God. Some suffering is spiritually creative but it has to be recognised that some suffering is simply due to the power of the demons in the world and forms no part of God's will. It does not have some ulterior spiritual purpose even if it can be used to some ulterior spiritual purpose because God can bring good out of ill.

Depression

According to this article in the Daily Telegraph almost 10% of the British population meet the criteria for depression nowadays, and the average age for the onset of depression is 14 years old as compared to 45 in the 1960s. Setting aside the fact that we know much more about this problem than in the past, when it would not have been so recognised, one has to ask what is it about the modern world that causes this? 

I am sure the professionals can come up with all sorts of reasons ranging from increased academic pressure on the young to consumerism to technology and so on and so forth. Probably people also have more time to be depressed now, and they expect more from life than our ancestors did. They see celebrities strutting across the stage of life and wonder why they can't be like them. This is particularly the case for teenage girls, I find. All these things are undoubtedly true and yet there is something more important that goes beyond them, and that is very simply the loss of God.

Depression relates to the absence of meaning. Yes, I know there may be physical problems that can also cause it but fundamentally it is the lack of meaning and purpose in an individual's life that results in a depressed attitude. Meaning and purpose can temporarily be found in many things but ultimately they reside only in the spiritual. When you deny the spiritual it is as though you have cut off the supply of blood to the heart. Eventually it ceases to function. Modern society has denied the spiritual and so it has denied meaning to life. There are no two ways about this. We can and do invent false meaning, through money, sex, fame, drugs, material success, political engagement and the like, but these don't take us very far and the artificial meaning they provide cannot be sustained for long. No wonder depression is on the rise.

Depression is also caused by fixation on the self. This is not a popular diagnosis but it is true. That is why old-fashioned remedies such as taking a walk or doing something for someone else make a lot of sense. But these are perhaps only short term solutions. There is really only one cure for depression and that is to turn to God. Depression is being trapped inside yourself. Only God can really take you beyond yourself.

Suffering and Happiness

'For the Lord disciplines those he loves and scourges every son he receives' Hebrews 12:6.

 'Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline' Revelation 3:19

There is the idea that once you adopt a spiritual perspective your life will improve and you will be happier and more fulfilled, maybe even eventually reaching some kind of enlightened state in this world. This is a dangerous illusion that can lead to individuals abandoning the path or taking to it for the wrong reasons and therefore making no progress.

For the fact is that the spiritual path has to do with purging the sinner of his sins or stripping the ego of its egotism, and this is not a pleasant process. You might consider that if you are happier in your outer self as a result of adopting a spiritual mode of being or 'lifestyle' you could very well be on the wrong track completely. For spirituality is not a therapy designed to make you feel better. It is a way of transformation that requires, as any transformation from one state to another must, sacrifice and renunciation, and sacrifice and renunciation are not made without suffering.

Beliefs adopted from New Age or Eastern sources tend to obscure the fact that this world is a training ground for the next. Consequently happiness in this world is not the goal of the spiritual life. That remains, as it is in traditional Christianity, to make one fit for the true life in a higher world. The rewards of the spiritual life are in the next life not this one which is an arena for purification and testing which goes on until death, particularly in the more advanced cases as one can plainly see in the lives of the saints.

Certainly saints are often marked out by their attitude of joy and cheerfulness. No one likes a miserable saint.  But this is because of their acceptance of God's will. It is not because they are happy on a personal level. Indeed, one often finds that the live of saints are full of personal hardship and suffering. Their love of God and spiritual dedication does not lead to rewards so much as trials and tribulations.

This might seem a rather inappropriate post for the Christmas period but forgive me if I seek to strip away the fake joy that goes with a modern irreligious Christmas. Christmas is about truth, and the greater truth that exists beyond the transient joys of this world. We can only be fit for that truth when the falsehood within ourselves is stripped away, and that does require the discipline mentioned in the opening quotations from scripture.

So I hope you had a happy Christmas. But if you didn't particularly enjoy yourself you might comfort yourself with the thought that God chastises those whom he loves. But the only reason he does so is that they may turn more and more to him since it is only in him that our true and lasting happiness lies.

Real happiness lies not in pleasure and enjoyment but listening to the word of God and doing his will.

Tests, Trials and Tribulations

When a person reaches a certain stage on the spiritual path, that person is going to be tested. Those who think that once you decide to follow a spiritual course your life will be full of love, peace and joy have little idea of the reality of things. The point of spirituality is not to make the lower, earthly self happy but to burn out the fires of ego, and that is not a pleasant operation. So, true spirituality is putting yourself in God's hands and letting him do what he wants with you in the certain knowledge that what he wants is the good of your soul, and that might include temporary and short term suffering. Actually, I can go further. It definitely will include that. Moreover, the further you proceed in real spirituality, the more suffering you are likely to encounter. This can be physical, some of the saints have endured dreadful ill health, but it is perhaps more likely to be mental and take a form that those still ensnared in this world simply can't understand. All this is designed to extract you from attachments to your own selfish egotism. And don't most of us take to spirituality for, at least partially, selfish motives?

As we progress along the path, our integrity is tested. False motivations are brought out and must be jettisoned. Our goals are questioned and we are asked whether we can sacrifice personal happiness for love. It would be nice if we could be sure that this was what was happening when it was happening but often we are kept completely in the dark. God is not there when we call on him. Any spiritually pleasant feelings of expansion we may have experienced at one time are cut off. We are thrown back on ourself with no outer or inner support at all. We must just press on in faith, and hope that one day the clouds will clear. Which they will but there's no telling when. It is a bit like Frodo and Sam going across the wastes of Mordor to Mount Doom.

This is all part of the test we must undergo to become spiritually perfect. Just think about that phrase for a moment. Spiritually perfect. That is our goal. Could it possibly be an easy thing of accomplishment? It must be the hardest thing there is because it is the crowning achievement of any human being in this world. It really does require the sacrifice of the earthly self, and that is never going to be a simple matter. It wasn't for the saints, and it won't be for us.

But there is something else over and above this spiritual testing. The Masters told me that the further anyone goes on the spiritual path, the more they will be attacked by dark forces, and I have definitely observed this to be so. It takes various forms. It can be internal attack as these powers seek to gain purchase in your mind by influencing your thoughts and feelings in certain directions. Or it can be external when you find yourself under attack by people you know, people you might come into contact with or even people with whom you might be close.

Now, it's very important to be sensible about this, to maintain a sense of proportion and avoid feelings of paranoia, thinking that anyone who disagrees with you is being manipulated by dark forces. You might be the one in the wrong! Nevertheless, it is the case that often those who are doing God's work in some way, or even just striving to live a life in accordance with spiritual truth, are attacked and undermined by others. These people may have their own agenda but they might also be taken advantage of by the demons though, of course, this would not be possible if the demons were not able to find a point of entrance in the person's soul through which they could gain access. They can only work with what is already there.

Some of the forms that attacks commonly take are unjust accusations and lies about your moral character.  These can often be very cunningly delivered with truth twisted just enough to make them almost plausible. Chinks in your armour are constantly sought, and faults you may actually possess are exaggerated and given excessive emphasis. It's as though darkness hates light and wants to drag it down to its own level which it does by accusing it of its own faults. The well-known phenomenon of projection is often in evidence in which the accuser berates the accused for behaving in the way that it, the accuser, is behaving. The devil has a serpentine mind and twists and turns in a manner that can be quite confusing to a spiritual person, who, generally speaking, is someone who leans towards simplicity. That's because truth is simple. It's truth, and that's all there is to it. But lies are always devious, and the devil is a particularly skilled liar and distorter. Those he influences behave in the same way.

What's the best way to defend yourself against this kind of attack? If possible, break off contact with the person, but if that is not possible, try not to respond in kind. That's what the dark powers want. They want to drag you down. It may be that you have some kind of spiritual connection to the person who attacks you and it is your task to experience this and see it out. Those who believe in reincarnation might see this as a karmic thing, but even those who don't should be able to see that even this form of attack can be an opportunity for you to learn to rise above the abuse and miscomprehension of this world. God might even use unjust attacks on you as a means of teaching you non-reaction and detachment. It's easy to get indignant if you are unjustly abused or your good name is tarnished but you have to learn that God sees the truth and that's all that matters. If you are a villain in the eyes of the world what does that matter if God knows the reality? Ultimately, the desire to be thought well of comes from the ego. It may be that you have to learn to let go of everything including what past generations would have called your honour.

Tests and trials are all part of the spiritual life. We must be prepared for them and not be surprised if we are attacked by anti-spiritual forces sworn to an agenda of destruction.