I Wonder

I wonder about many things. Why, for instance, are human beings so contradictory in their behaviour? We are usually willing to make allowances for human frailty where family is concerned and certainly expect others to make allowances for our own. However, when it comes to others we are more judgemental and expect a great deal more from them than ourselves. Should a stranger stumble, especially where their error causes us personal difficulties, we are often unwilling to make any allowances whatsoever. I wonder how it is that we can be surrounded by so much beauty and yet seem to delight in creating ugliness? I wonder at the perversity that makes us abhor violence as individuals but collectively glorify it in print and on film, and then wring our hands because society grows more violent.

I wonder why our physical senses have such an over-powering effect on our behaviour. Why is it that our finer senses need such careful husbanding to bring them to the point where they can counteract the physical ones? Even when the finer senses have been brought to the fore by careful training, there is a need for constant vigilance to ensure they remain there. Are we still so close to the primitive natures with which we began? Have millennia of human evolution failed so far to sufficiently distance us from our animal ancestry? Is it meant to be this way? Is earthly life planned by the great Creator to be one of conflict and if so, why? Anyone who thinks clearly about it will see we are beings of spirit who have physical bodies temporarily, yet so many refuse to examine the evidence objectively, preferring to remain in ignorance. Objective examination also discloses that life is not a purely physical matter. Humans can duplicate the appearance of living creatures, they can even use the mechanisms of nature to produce clones BUT NEVER HAVE WE BEEN ABLE TO PRODUCE LIFE! The life force that is required to energise any living thing is not of this world.

Scientists are well aware of this I believe and yet they persist in promoting the fiction that life is a purely mechanical process and soon its secrets will be revealed to their ever searching eyes. All they need is more sensitive, sophisticated instruments and everything will be revealed. As my father often used to say to me, “There are none so blind as those who WILL not see.” Because the activities of the scientific community have led to inventions that have made physical life so much more comfortable for many, they are held in increasingly high regard, despite the evidence that their much vaunted objectivity is frequently clouded by preconceived notions and research slanted to justify such notions. Not all scientists are self-seeking and arrogant, Albert Einstein for instance, refused to work on the Manhattan project that perfected the atomic bomb, but such altruism is rare.

Mystics and gifted poets alike have presented us with detailed accounts of the beauty that is to be found when we focus as much effort on discovering the hidden, spiritual self as we do on the outer, physical self. Yet, most people prefer not to take the time or trouble to follow the mental and spiritual discipline necessary to reveal this beauty. Are they right? Are ordinary men and women the ones who are really on the right track in using this life as it should be? I wonder! Should we all perhaps surrender to the physical domination of our egos and ignore the spiritual until we return to the world of spirit when we die? By focussing on the higher, spiritual self while we are here, are we frustrating the true object of earthly existence? And what about communication between ourselves and those who have already passed to that spiritual world? Is it wrong? Does it really exist, or is it a figment of the imagination of Spiritualists? If it does exist, are we right to use it because perhaps we are intended to remain in ignorance of our true selves?

Anyone who has tried to follow a spiritual or contemplative path; anyone who has ever received communication from a loved one who has passed to the spiritual world; anyone who has looked at the natural world with an objective gaze; anyone who uses their higher senses at all, will know the vital importance of using these things as an integral part of their life on earth. The feeling of love that permeates a genuine communication from the spiritual world; the feelings of elation and joy that greet those who are successful in achieving an altered state of consciousness without the aid of drugs; the feelings of awe and wonder when we glimpse for the first time the true, spiritual beauty of the natural world and see the spiritual light that emanates from all living things; such people KNOW beyond any shadow of doubt that we are meant to live a physical life in the knowledge of and participation in its spiritual dimension.

As Robert Frost says in his poem “The Trial by Existence” as God binds spirit to matter until death separates them again, “The awe passes wonder then,”