Today is Good Friday but Easter is Coming

 I hope it's not sacrilegious to say that sometimes it feels as though the disciples of the world are going through a kind of Gethsemane experience at the moment. Most people will not feel this but those who are responsive to the spiritual level will be aware of the gathering darkness. The bad news is that Gethsemane precedes Good Friday. The good news is that Good Friday precedes Easter Sunday. There is undoubtedly more darkness to come but if we allow it this can be a cleansing, purifying darkness for our souls that prepares them for the light.

Many of the incidents in Jesus's life can be seen as experiences that come to the soul as it progresses on the spiritual path, and the most significant are those that come at the end of his life. Abandoned by friends and, seemingly, even God the soul is thrown back entirely on itself. Its spiritual gifts, if it had them, are withdrawn, its earthly renown, if it had it, is lost. It is no one and nothing with only faith and the intuitive sense of truth to support it. This is the final purification that strips the soul of any worldliness and self-regard that may still be clinging to it so that it becomes light enough to enter the spiritual world. For these are like heavy weights that hold the soul down and will prevent it rising until they are cast off.

This is on the individual level. But patterns repeat themselves at all stages of the path and in all spheres, both on the individual and the group level, and the whole world is experiencing something similar. There is a sorting out of that part of humanity that has the potential to rise and that part which may be held over for future development. We are being presented with a choice which in the simplest terms amounts to God or this world. But note that many people might think they are opting for God when in fact they are in the worldly camp. One of the tests of the present time is that it is no longer sufficient merely to give your allegiance to an earthly institution. All are corrupted and you have to see the reality behind the institution as far more important than the thing itself. Which, of course, means you have to be able to perceive something of this reality.

There is no getting around the fact that the spiritual life can only be known by those who undergo worldly death and this death must be undergone willingly. Before the soul can become united with God it must die to the world and be stripped of itself. Look at the times to come as part of that process for we all, however spiritual or religious we may consider ourselves to be, are sinners and what that means is our centre is our self. We may have relatively good selves or relatively bad selves but until we know, really know, that "we are as nothing and all we are comes from the Creator" the tendency to sin, which means act from the centre of self, remains. The whole of the spiritual life is about replacing self with God at the centre of our being. Good Friday is the start of that process and Easter Sunday the glorious conclusion.