SPIRITUAL AWAKENING
“Every hour of earth life is therefore more precious than ever … Begin timely with the awakening.” - Abd-ru-shin1
We live in a time of intense materialism and unparalleled intellectual sophistication. This combination makes spiritual development extremely difficult for the individual and the effort required is beyond most of us. The very air around us is saturated with the distractive influences of complex space-age technology and all ambitions drive towards material success. Like it or not, an indefinable pressure urges each individual towards this goal of materialism and the masses offer envious worship to any who achieves material success above the common lot, in any activity no matter how immoral or contrary to what had always been recognized as right. Money, power, fame, celebrity status, notoriety! These are all that matter.
Yet these feverish activities do not always or even frequently satisfy and some uneasiness often arises, which unfortunately we again bury in more feverish activity; uneasiness that the path we tread may be wrong after all. Unfortunately, the quiet admonishing voice warning us from deep within our inner being that life is much more than these externals is seldom heeded, if perceived at all. The deeply intellectual materialists translate the sense of non-fulfilment into a need for more material success. They react by seeking more strenuously for happiness and peace in more and more material acquisition. However, they seek in vain because true happiness and joy is a spiritual not material experience. On the other hand, many individuals who claim to believe in God, under similar pressures go so far as to blame their inner disquietude on the demands of religion and/or on the Creator. When erudite enough, these people, who should thereby be urged to search deeper for a meaning to their existence, instead rant and rave against the Creator pretending objectivity by demanding proof of a God by criteria defined and acceptable to them.
The root cause of the problem for both groups of course is spiritual indolence. Unfortunately, this is not usually appreciated by those involved because they equate spiritual indolence to intellectual lukewarmness. However, the opposite is the case as spiritual indolence is often associated with and may be a consequence of excessive intellectual preoccupation. This combination of intellectualism and spiritual indolence results in the conceit that suggests to them that they are qualified to act as both judge and jury in something they do not in the least understand; a conceit that demands an explanation for the existence of the Creator instead of seeking to recognize Him from inner, spiritual movement.
Inner spiritual movement is fundamental to our humanity. Our inner mobile, living core is spiritual and it is this living core that is the responsible being. The material covering represent the essential tools for the protection and activity of the spirit that wishes to experience the material spheres. The intellect belongs to the material and preoccupation with its leading is a denial of our true being and represents the greatest obstacle to our development and maturity. As material preoccupation becomes more pronounced, the inner urges of the spirit become less distinct and today only a few human spirits still heed the helpful guidance that the inner urge to awaken represent. If we awaken to the call of the living spirit directed to the Creator the humble volition to strive in the Light becomes the incentive for the awakening of our spirit.
Humanity may accept, when forced to do so, that our existence in this sphere is finite, but as long as we remain reasonably healthy in a physical sense, we refuse to consider this limitation imposed by our mortality as an imminent possibility. Meanwhile, the material world that has served us all, for millions of years of evolution steadily heads towards ultimate disintegration. Every human spirit senses this fact that our world is dying, although often without much clarity adding to the indefinable pressure that urges us to an awakening.
Our activities are already adjusting to this fact that our world is dying. We worry about Ozone layer depletion, global warming, nuclear holocaust, ecosystem failure, and even invasion from space. Concerned scientists and ‘big businesses’ are now frantically searching for alternative habitation in nearby planets. Even diseases and epidemics that in spite of unprecedented human resources and ability to communicate in a unified globe cannot be controlled are regarded as big threats to our world. Our ecology is collapsing. Many animals and plants has been driven to extinction and we are only beginning to perceive the threat that this poses to continuing existence of humanity since all living things depend on each other to maintain ecological balance. Economy and politics have also taken unacceptable turns that wise ones now think will result in societies’ inevitable collapse. It will seem that without openly acknowledging it, even the most hardened materialists recognize a coming end time, the world judgement as advocated by religious thought. Less than fifty years ago, majority of human beings would have scoffed at the idea that our world as we know it can cease to exist. Today only irrational and less intuitive individuals will dismiss the accumulating evidence as irrelevant.
We have exhausted the opportunities to live irresponsibly in the World of Matter and a time of accounting is upon us. Although perhaps not in the sense that zealous religious movements present it, but certainly in a sense that individual opportunities to continue to exist and experience in the form human spirits have become accustomed to, with little consideration for the responsibility attached to our activities has been exhausted. A higher Will than the human Will seems to have been imposed on the course of world events which drives inexorably towards an accounting.
In whatever way we may wish to view it however, the obvious conclusion is that the earth is under threat of destruction as a result of human activities. Everyone, or at least all those who have given it a thought agree about this, and what needs to be clarified is the nature of the human activity that can so profoundly affect not just our physical world but even oppress us spiritually. Is it possible that seeking for answers in purely material causes is mere externalization of a deep-rooted problem and that the cause lies elsewhere, in the spiritual failure of humanity?
Whatever the cause however, the need for solution and for enlightenment rages over the troubled souls of humanity. Unfortunately, primarily because we are unwilling to accept personal individual responsibility in the corporate failure of humanity, efforts to redress the balance have so far remained unfulfilled. The poorly articulated fears resulting from the subtle pressures we live under have culminated in a culture of blame in societies that permit free expression and brutal repression in less civilized societies. However, the problem must be tackled first at individual levels where indeed the original seed for it was sown.
We should be aware that all our thoughts and activities take on forms, which continue to exist even when we are no longer aware of them, in planes that are not always visible and tangible to us. This possibility to give rise to forms rests in the intrinsic ability of the human spirit to draw from the power of God in Creation. When these forms of our activities are evil, that is when contrary to the Will of God, they remain in the lower darker regions of these ethereal spheres. Over millennia of our existence on earth, contrary human will have given rise to dense, dark forms which have accumulated in these unseen planes around us and around the material spheres in which we live, making it difficult for purer thoughts to ascend and for guidance from the Light to reach us from above. This darkness arising out of our wrong volition thus acts as a dense impenetrable canopy1, oppressing and preventing us from recognizing the source of our dissatisfaction.
The problems of our world and the difficulties with resolving them therefore are directly attributable to humanity’s misuse of spiritual power. Isaiah saw this long ago when he said – “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ears too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear”.2
Since we have, individually and collectively formed this darkness with our wrong volition, we must also work our way out of it. However, no permanent solutions can be found by addressing only the final physical manifestations of the problem. Unless we address the root cause by changing from within we can never hope to re-establish harmony. This has been repeatedly shown by the increasing frequency of ecological, social and political disasters in spite of high level world consultations and the very advanced capabilities to cope with them.
The consequences