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Unspoken Questions about the Divine
It may be hard to believe, given the present state of our world, but there once was a time when the entire human race agreed on something. Starting well before the time of the Yoga Sutras, long before the Old Testament, and extending into the 20th century, there was a remarkable consensus among our forbears. They believed, universally, that the will of God was manifest in and through natural disasters. “God-fearing folk,” whose ranks included virtually everyone, viewed catastrophes—like a “hundred-year flood” or a “five hundred-year earthquake,” as well as more frequent weather events such as tornadoes and hurricanes— as signs of the wrath of deity.
In fact, early religions arose out of a sensed need to appease the gods—later the one God—so that people might be spared the ravages of nature (as well as invasions from marauding tribes). Human beings always had weapons to fend off their enemies, but mankind was defenseless when it came to the implacable will of Mother Nature. The destruction of homes, crops and livelihoods through natural disasters evoked a spirit of atonement in our ancestors, as they turned to their God. Central to all religions was the idea that “acts of God” were precipitated by unrighteous behavior. The beliefs of pre-modern peoples reflected a sense of the subtle workings of cause and effect. Then along came the scientific revolution.
Science, the face of modernity, was concerned solely with visible causes and effects subject to physical proof. The religious idea that an invisible “higher power” affected human living was, over time, cast into the realm of superstition. Within the scientific paradigm, earthquakes were caused by the movement of the earth’s tectonic plates. Torrential flooding resulted from shifts in oceanic temperatures and winds. By treating natural forces as purely physical phenomena, science loosened the grip of traditional religions. Dogma and doctrine came under assault first; later, the moral authority of religious hierarchies declined with the exposure of internal hypocrisies.
Virtually all human hierarchies suffered a similar fate in the latter part of the 20th century when a great leveling process occurred. Long-established pecking-orders lost moral legitimacy as freedom movements surged. The north star of people’s liberation struggles was the freedom to live as each person chose. So it was that by the end of the last century, the old man with a flowing white beard seated on a throne in heaven—for millennia the highest Authority on Earth—was barely a blip on the screen. The God conceived in man’s image was declared dead by Western intellectuals in the 1960s. When the new millennium dawned, Deity was imperceptible in the common culture.
Out of this vacuum there arose a new facet of divinity, unnoticed initially by all but a relatively few souls. Because this new awareness of the divine was born of inner experience, it was and still is hidden from the larger world. Synchronistically, starting in the 1960s, individuals across the globe began to awaken, spontaneously, to the reality of the higher Self—the inner spark of divinity that is the soul. In place of an authoritarian Father-God, the emergent aspect of divinity began to make itself known as spiritual love flowing into the open heart of the awakening soul.
Despite the fact that this new stream of spirituality turned into a wave of higher consciousness encircling the Earth, it has remained out of the range of the mainstream media—until recently. A spiritual phenomenon, originating beyond the circumference of the old paradigm, it cannot be easily understood or captured in sound-bites. It took the escalation of natural disasters to bring the emerging Soul of Humanity into the light of day. In the wake of each calamity, as strangers reach out to help each other, fleeting images of compassion, love, sharing, and sacrifice appear in headlines and on TV screens. These images, peeking out of the wreckage of towns and cities, reflect the divine self entering the world—the higher aspect of human nature that knows itself to be one with all selves and all of life.
There are actually myriad signs of the divine self entering the world, for those attuned to the new wave of consciousness. Consider the swell of books and websites about the soul; the thousands of NGOs mobilized to serve human need and protect the environment; the growing recognition of “the divine triad” of Beauty, Truth and Goodness in the world. The budding soul of humanity is also evident in inspired works of creative artists using sound, light and color to evoke spiritual realms; in the work of healers who treat the subtle energy body—the soul’s vehicle in the world; in scientists’ explorations of subtle energies and invisible dimensions. Thousands of new “flowers” are blooming—each one a harbinger of the dawning new era when awakened souls will create together an enlightened culture.
At the same time, there are growing questions about the Divine that reflect a gap in understanding. While many have come to recognize the spark of God within the soul, the other half of the picture—the God that transcends and pervades all of life—is missing from contemporary spiritual writings. As a result, curious anomalies appear. There is a popular idea, for example, that an “evolutionary impulse” is responsible for the spiritual awakening of our time. But this impulse is portrayed as originating on its own, independent of any higher source. Likewise, the reality of a path of spiritual evolution has gained recognition, but little attention has been paid to where this path leads. The higher aspect of Divinity remains veiled, leaving us with only partial vision.
But a vision of the whole can be found—in the modern wisdom teachings. Written for seekers at the dawn of the new age, these teachings describe two aspects of divinity. “God Immanent,” as the human soul is known, is contained within God Transcendent—the Life force itself and the Higher Power that governs the course of evolution on Earth, with Intelligence, Love, and Purpose. These two divine aspects become united by the seeker who treads the path from ordinary awareness toward enlightened understanding. A relationship is forged, on this Path, between Self and Source revealing a human-divine chain of consciousness. It is said that belief in divinity is replaced by conviction, in turn replaced by direct knowledge of the Divine.
As the Aquarian Age unfolds, the two facets of divinity and the path that joins them will have growing relevance to the human kingdom. At present, for most of us, the higher aspect of the Divine is shrouded in mystery. It is a mystery that confronts us with growing immediacy, however, as threats to life on Earth intensify. Staggeringly powerful forces of nature press themselves into our awareness, leaving us with hosts of unspoken questions. We wonder, in silence, through continuous waves of destruction, about the true identity of “Mother Nature.”
Though entire regions of countries are reduced to rubble, and many millions of lives devastated, meteorologists still cite “the whims of Mother Nature” as the cause. But as thinkers begin to probe what lies behind her skirts, the “God question,” long under quarantine, returns to stare us in the face. We wonder who or what is ravaging Earth? Is it by chance that certain regions suffer from relentless torrential floods while regions “next door” experience continuous drought? Who or what determines the circuitous paths of hurricanes and tornadoes that devastate one part of a city and leave the rest intact? If an All-Knowing, All-powerful Intelligence is involved in such events, or a multiplicty of forces, what are its (or their) purposes?
It is possible that our ancestors posed similar questions as they looked up at the sky when lightning struck and ‘saw’ a higher power at work. Later, with the invention of the lightning rod, and countless other modern inventions, human beings (in technologically advanced countries) began to feel relatively safe and secure against the forces of nature. We came to believe that we controlled our own destinies. But that rock-solid belief has begun to give way with the recent wave of natural disasters. Their ferocity has made it clear that human security no longer resides in manmade devices.
Still, violence rages—from human as well as natural causes—and the old order plods on. Officials continue to ignore signs of the urgent need for change to preserve life on Earth. And we, as members of a species once deemed rational, are at a loss to comprehend why. Is it pure inertia? Is it blind self-interest? Is it hubris—resistance to acknowledging forces more powerful than ourselves? Or is it fear of facing the consequences of our actions, fear of change, fear of the unknown? Whatever the reasons, each cataclysm brings us closer to the realization that ordinary human consciousness is insufficient to the existential challenges of this moment.
With the awakening of higher consciousness, a new set of answers is needed, along with a new understanding of the Divine. The once familiar biblical God was exiled from modern culture for failure to satisfy the rational scientific mind. Now that human consciousness is expanding beyond the rational mind, the explanations of physical science no longer satisfy. But there is a science that speaks to the higher mind—the new science of esotericism contained in the modern wisdom teachings. It is called “the science of the soul.”
In this science of subtle realities, God is a unitary Being—an all-embracing Life “in whom we live and move and have our being.” This Life evolves, as do all creatures within it, according to a Divine Plan and in keeping with the laws of cause and effect and of rebirth (or karma and reincarnation). It is said that Earth is now going through an accelerated phase of evolution as it passes from one age to another. As our planet hurtles toward a new “incarnation” at a higher vibrational frequency, every cell in its body is impacted. For sensitive souls, the destruction of outworn forms is fostering a rapid expansion of consciousness that will blossom—in the coming era—as the divine soul becomes a co-creative force aligned with Divine Purpose.
Of course these statements are not subject to any “proof” beyond the resonance they may find within the individual soul. But even when there is resonance, the seeker is faced with still another set of questions. If the destruction taking place on Earth is in keeping with a divine Plan, then what is the responsibility of human beings? If our species had responded promptly to threats of global warming, would it have made a substantial difference? Is there still time for us to affect the course of events? Or, are things spinning out of control because we’re approaching the end of an age based on material consciousness? If this is so, and we accept the premise that Earth is evolving toward a subtler realm, should we orient our lives toward spiritual realities—aware that every action born of soul consciousness contributes to the new civilization?
To our ancestors, “acts of God” were seen as punishment. To students of esoteric wisdom, destructive events reflect the workings of the law of cause and effect. In order to grow spiritually, we're required to reap what we’ve sown in the past—as individuals, family members, citizens of nations, and part of the human race. It is often tragic events that give birth to higher awareness. When events are called “apocalyptic,” as has happened lately, new meaning arises. “Apocalyptic,” the Greek word for “revelatory,” was used in biblical writings to indicate the revelation of an ultimate divine purpose. Is it possible that “apocalyptic” events are serving to reveal a Force greater than ourselves? Do they signal the end of a material age and the birth of a spiritual age in alignment with divine intent, as indicated in the ageless wisdom? If so, we can look forward to a time when the light of the soul will irradiate the world and humanity will fulfill its part in the Great Chain of Being.
Nancy Seifer and Martin Vieweg
[ October 4, 2011]
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