Spiritual Crisis

A few years ago I wrote a book called The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man (see here and here) which was largely based on essays from this blog arranged thematically. The crisis has obviously intensified since 2019 when the book was published but its nature has not changed. It concerns humanity's rejection of God which has the effect of leading people to search for meaning in false paths, some political, some supposedly spiritual through the attempted deification of the human self, and some just plain hedonistic. That's to name just a few of the wrong directions in which people may go when they turn away from the path of truth and reality.

The events of 2020 could not have happened, certainly not to the extent they did, in a world in which people acknowledged God. To acknowledge God does not just mean you accept a higher power in which all truth is centred and from which it derives. It means you perceive a meaning and a purpose and goal beyond this world which, let's face it and despite its many beauties, is a distinctly unsatisfying place if it represents the sum total of existence. But surely we should know we are not the body and if we are not the body then this world is not all there is and if that is the case then there must be more, something more real that lies behind it. 

We should know we are not the body for many reasons but one simple one is that we speak of 'my' body. That means we recognise that the 'I' lies elsewhere. It is not the product of the body or physically derived but uses the body as part of its experience and means to express itself. Think of your body. It really is just flesh and bone and blood, and surely it should be obvious we are more than that. Obvious as in known unless we are bamboozled by intellectual sophistries. This is not to denigrate the physical body which is currently part of the totality of our being but it is only part and by no means the central part. If people had understood this then they would not have allowed themselves to be panicked by officious bureaucrats and a cravenly compliant media into a quasi-totalitarian situation with an unnecessary and potentially dangerous medical intervention presented as the only escape route. But most people succumbed to the propaganda and they did so because of fear. It was a test which the majority failed. The medical crisis, assuming there ever really was one which is highly doubtful, has passed but the groundwork has been laid for human beings to have their freedom taken away again at some future date. When something has happened once it becomes much easier to do it again. If it's been done before there is precedent so we are less inclined to question it the next time.

Human beings are so constituted that we can accept or deny reality. We have the freedom to do that. But if we make the wrong choice, there are inevitable consequences as in cause and effect consequences. These may not be obvious straightaway but they will become increasingly apparent. Such is our situation. We have turned away from reality and at first there may even have seemed to be the illusion of greater freedom after doing that. There is also a certain freedom if you jump out of a window. However, the law of gravity cannot be ignored and we descend in this certain freedom until we hit the ground. So it is in a spiritual sense. We are falling and the only way to avoid a crash is to learn to fly which basically means return to the acknowledgment of God who alone can save us from a hard landing. I am speaking metaphorically, of course. Suffering in the material sense is not circumvented by faith and spiritual suffering often increases as that is part of the purificatory operation on the soul. But these are transitory and have an ultimately beneficial purpose. The suffering that comes from the rejection of God has no purpose. It is just the negative consequence of denying truth and it does not lead to joy.

Why does one deny truth? Some people might claim that it is an intellectual matter but that is either too simplistic or else an excuse for the failure to exercise proper spiritual responsibility. The true answer lies in the will. The will is sovereign. It is the one thing that is entirely our own and part of the reason for our life in this material world is to test it in an environment where there is no coercion. The current spiritual crisis may in part be seen as the inevitable consequence of a cycle reaching its conclusion when material clouds have thickened to such a degree that the spiritual sun is almost completely obscured. But even when you cannot see the sun its light is perceptible and so it is now. The light of God may be obscured but it is still present and we should know that without that light we could not see anything at all. The current crisis, which is now in the process of moving from simple crisis to actual madness, is to bring things to a head. Use the situation in the world today as a springboard to push against and return to God.

The Human Form

We can speculate that our original spiritual form may have been one of light. If it had a shape it might have been something like a sphere or that's the closest we can imagine with our three dimensionally based minds. This is the only way we can conceive of the appearance of the soul, a spiritual being, on its own plane of existence. But when we come to Earth we acquire the human form we know with eyes, ears, a head, hair, limbs and so on.  However, all these are to perform material functions or developed in response to a physical environment. Eyes, ears and nose are to enable sensory response, their shape and structure determined by that requirement. Hands, fingers, legs and feet are to allow us to interact with and manipulate the environment. None of these  have a spiritual purpose as such and so my question is what is the form of souls in heaven? Do they revert to spheres of light with a luminescence determined by the degree of spiritual unfoldment or do they retain an earthly appearance?

Beauty is one of the major attributes of God. A major reason for creation is to allow for the expression of beauty, and, as we currently know it, beauty reaches its apogee in the human being. It makes no sense that this beauty be discarded simply because the functions on which it was initially based are no longer necessary. Therefore, I suggest that one of the reasons for our incarnation as spiritual beings in a material world is to acquire the imprint of the human form which we can take back to our soul selves in the higher worlds in order to beautify these. This would mean that our souls would still be spheres of light (again conceived in three dimensional terms), though now greatly expanded and much brighter than they were before if we have succeeded in our spiritual tasks, but they can be expressed in human form. In this physical world we have an outer form and an inner corporeal composition, blood, guts, bodily organs and the like. In the spiritual world we may have something similar except that that the inner body is now the soul, the being of light. This, I submit, is why we all feel a degree of disgust for the inner physical body but not its outer form. We know that our true inner self is the soul.

When visionaries see higher beings, whether it be Jesus or Mary for Christians or some of the saints, other traditions record similar phenomena, they see a figure. A figure glowing with light but still an individual human figure and one of great beauty. It is sometimes claimed that it is the visionary's own mind that creates the form or else that the spiritual being manifests in this way to appear more familiar. This may be true but it does not mean that the form is not real as well. We tend to think abstract spirituality is more advanced than a concrete representational sort but why should both not be included in the perfected end product? After all, God looked at creation and saw that it was good. I think it is a grave error to reduce the spiritual to the formless. There is the inner and the outer and both together make the whole. The perfection of life is in the perfection of spirit, soul and body, not just one as in spirit but all three, though naturally with spirit in the hierarchically superior position. But if God is a trinity so are we and all parts of the trinity require completion. The outer form may have been constructed in the physical world and according to physical needs but it is made beautiful by the developing soul and then remains as a spiritually perfected union of the two in the higher worlds.

It's Time to Wake Up

 Anyone who hasn't seen through the evils of the current time as summed up by the litmus tests is in danger of being complicit in them. You may think this is unfair and that people cannot be blamed for succumbing to relentless one-sided propaganda but we are supposed to be intelligent, conscious adults. We are called to look beyond appearance and to develop aspects of our mind that see reality beneath the surface. These aspects, which can be brought together under the category of spiritual discernment, exist but we will not develop them if we limit our conception of the human being to a materialistic level. To do that in this day and age I will go so far as to call a sin because it is a failure of spiritual responsibility and shows disrespect towards the Creator. We are not innocent. We are not victims. We have a duty to God and part of that duty is to recognise him and to understand his purpose for us. Both of these are important. It's no good acknowledging God but behaving according to the understanding of this world. There are people who think they recognise God and believe in the spiritual but if these people fail to apply that recognition to what goes on at the material level then they lack insight and their spirituality is sterile. They might believe in the spiritual but they don't understand it.

Equally, it's no good acknowledging God but thinking all you have to do is focus on the spiritual and what happens in the material is of no concern to you. The material is the spiritual. It is part of it and must be seen in the light of the spiritual. God favours marriage not divorce and we are meant to bring the material into line with the spiritual not separate the two. It's always from above downwards but God saw his creation and said it was good. He instructed man to work in it and take care of it. Taking care of the material means bringing it closer into line with the spiritual so that it may serve as a vessel for the spiritual in which to manifest. It is through the material that the good, the beautiful and the true can be known and expressed.

God allows evil so that good may come of it. The good may be the awakening to truth in the human heart as it recognises and rejects evil. The evil is not good in itself but it can help to bring out latent good. We should not make the mistake of thinking that evil is part of God's plan but, given the possibility of it arising in a world of freedom, it can be used by God. Nevertheless, to slightly paraphrase Luke 17:1, even though there must be evil in the world, woe to him through whom it comes. There is never any justification for evil.

Most people are lost because they recognise no reality beyond this world and even many who do believe in the spiritual subordinate that belief to worldly considerations when these assert themselves. Which means they don't really believe. If you really believe in the spiritual you must see everything in that light. There is no situation in which the spiritual is not primary. The body must be fed and life must be lived in the world while you are here but even these things are secondary. The spiritual must always be the root reality of your existence, and if you make it so you will be supported. That doesn't mean life will easy but you will be supported. When times like the current times arise and the worldly powers seek to force you in a certain direction all you have to do is the right thing by God. You need not worry about consequences which is not to say that there won't be consequences. There may well be but these are external to your true self. I don't say this lightly but the most important thing is always to remain faithful to God.

The present time can be understood as one in which the attempt is being made to undo creation and return it to chaos. This is why the spiritual and the natural are both under attack. The aim is to unravel reality and reduce it back down to raw matter untouched by the creative breath of spirit. The relentless focus on equality is one aspect of this. True equality can only exist in the uncreated state of complete equilibrium. The greater the activity of spirit, the greater the inequality precisely because spirit is creative and creation differentiates. It disturbs basic oneness which is the state of unexpressed potential in chaos before creation. Oneness in this respect is the same as nothingness. Equality is death. Why? Because the only way it can be reached is by reduction to nothing. We have fallen for the ideology of equality because we think it means fairness. Everyone is the same. No one is better than anyone else. But that is not the spiritual way which always tends towards greater freedom, more individuality. This is certainly within the context of God and the overall oneness behind creation but to use oneness to crush difference is a diabolical ploy aimed at destroying the hierarchy of being and bringing the higher down to the level of the lower. It is intended to desacralise. We lost spirit and we are currently losing the natural as well. Computer technology is one arm of that and the rejection of the fundamental reality of male and female is another.

The bulk of humanity is asleep. Seduced by comfort and entertainment, we allow ourselves to be manipulated by powers that seek complete separation from God. We are losing our freedom because of fear and many seem willing to accept anything merely for a quantitive extension of life. But life is eternal anyway! To paraphrase again, this time Matthew 10:28, we should not fear what can kill the body but what can kill the soul. It is our spiritual immune system that needs boosting now.

Asceticism

Asceticism is founded on the idea that you can get closer to spirit by detaching yourself from matter other than what is strictly necessary to maintain life in the physical body. It has a long history and appears in most religions in various forms ranging from fasting to celibacy and other physical privations up to and including deliberately inflicting pain on oneself. I once met a man in India who had remained standing for several years. He lived in the forest with a couple of disciples and neither sat nor lay down though he had a simple wooden bar to lean on. There is also the famous Jain statue at Sravana Belagola which depicts a naked man standing upright in deep meditation who has been in that position so long that vines have grown up around his legs. Obviously that is a fantasy but it depicts an attitude of great ascetic self-control, endured in the attempt to gain spiritual mastery. In India these austerities are called tapas which is a word with the root meaning of heat or fire and implies that such an activity burns away all the material dross in the aspirant's lower nature leaving just the shining spiritual core behind.

There may have been a place for such things at one time. In a world before a developed mental focus arose, complete mastery of the body might have been a major part of spiritual development. However, the antiquity of these practises indicates that that period was a long time ago. Even the Buddha renounced extreme asceticism, and it is notable that Jesus was not an ascetic and nor did he require his disciples to be such. That does not mean that there is no need to subdue the physical side of being. There most assuredly is but its place is not paramount. The body is part of the totality of what we are but it is a part that should be under the rulership of the higher parts, higher because they are more conscious, freer and closer to the essential nature of what we are.

God looked at the world and saw that it was good. This tells us that extreme asceticism is not good because it denies the virtue in creation. On the other hand, it is a fallen world and we must overcome the fallen part of our own nature in order to become properly responsive to spirit. The lower must be dominated so that the higher can make itself known to the fullest extent. This is the basis of asceticism but the ascetic should not deny or try to kill the lower. This is the mistake of the gnostic who sees matter as evil thus failing to realise that it is not matter which is evil but materialistic consciousness. To see matter as evil is to destroy creativity and love, and a spirituality without creativity and love is a desiccated sort of thing which may bestow a kind of psychic power, as tapas was traditionally thought to do, but will do so at the expense of a deeper, truer and richer spiritual understanding.

The balance between the ascetic and the physical has in the past not always been found. Apart from the severe self-mortifications of certain mystics there have been sects that have gone the other way and decided that since everything is holy we have been given the green light to do whatever we want which includes sexual over-indulgence. That is wishful thinking at best and downright stupid however you look at it. The body has its place but should always be seen in the light of the soul to which it must be sublimated. Everything may be holy but there is a hierarchy. To allow physical instincts to override spiritual focus in this way is the result of an unbalanced and corrupted imagination and will lead to spiritual disease. Matter may be the means through which creation is expressed but unless it is submissive and open to spirit, as was the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is not holy.

Even now there may be certain periods in a disciple's life when asceticism is required. However, such an approach is not generally demanded any more than long periods of meditation are necessary. These may even be harmful and assuredly will be if they lead to spiritual isolationism and pride. Nonetheless, if the material side of one's being should not be seen as an enemy to be totally beaten and crushed, it should still be tamed and brought under conscious control to the point where it is a more or less pure vessel for the soul. This, of course, is its natural state and has only become otherwise because of our disordered way of being. Asceticism is like a medicine needed to cure a sickness. A spiritually healthy person requires no such medicine and will automatically respond to the body in a spiritually healthy way with neither indulgence nor disdain.