Sraddhalu Ranade - The Loss of the Sacred

global oneness project The Loss of the Sacred There was a time long ago--maybe a few thousand years ago at least that the mass of humanity had a natural sense of the sacred. Sraddhalu Ranade - Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, India - Scientist, Educationalist, Scholar That the world itself is a sacred space. And nature is sacred. And our presence here is sacred. It was a period of natural harmony which was disturbed by the development of the human intellect, which standing back in its self-awareness feels itself superior and its relationship with the whole universe becomes one of dominance. And modern science is the characteristic expression of this power of the intellect to try to use nature, to conquer nature, and subjugate nature to serve one's own desires. This is an inevitable passage. But as part of this, the mind has also become to a great extent, materialist, in the sense that it has lost its sensitivity to the sacred dimension. Even to the extent of feeling as if all of that is unreal or in imagination. Even when one experiences something of the deeper reality behind appearances, one can easily cover it up and say, "Oh, I must have imagined it." But all of us have experienced the presence of something-- positive--negative--when we are in nature. All of us have had glimpses of unusual experiences or events where there was a kind of a thought transmission. We think we remember somebody and the phone rings--and he calls. We're about to speak something--and someone else speaks exactly the same words. These are experiences which happen to everybody. But we cover it up and say-- Coincidence. Chance. If you observe this word--Chance-- It represents a label that covers our ignorance. I don't know what caused it. I covered up that ignorance by saying Chance caused it. Chance--You can replace the word by, "I don't know." "I don't know" caused it. So although we experience a deeper dimension to life-- parapsychological--paranormal--occult-- whatever name one gives to it, we tend to cover it up because that's how we have been brought up. To be rational and materially centered. But, innate to most indigenous traditions, and to our experience, is this deeper damage. And whether a person refuses to see it or not, it's there. And where modern science has turned its tools of exploration to this dimension, it has found the reality of this dimension. The only problem with modern scientists is that to recognize this dimension is to suddenly state that all of the science that we have built up is almost trivial, compared to this new possibility. And no scientist wants to do that. So there is a kind of a resistance to face one's own huge ignorance in humanity. But I have seen a lot of research, not only of studying the paranormal parapsychological phenomena, but also using it. The CIA recently declassified 10,000 documents on remote viewing in which psychics were given coordinates of locations and asked to describe what they see there. And a lot of it was in the Soviet Union. And you find extremely accurate descriptions of machines, events, and all correlated later by intelligence reports. Now here is documentation of how this inner potential of the human being has been used. And we can't say it doesn't exist. So, to those who are skeptical of an inner dimension one can offer this evidence. But those who refuse to see the evidence well, they continue to remain in ignorance of it. But it means a lot, as far as the future potential of humanity is concerned. This inner potential represents a possibility that we have still to develop as the human potential. The powers of telepathy. Psychokinesis. Remote viewing. Empathy at a distance. All of these are there in us already. They are non-functional, or they function in small bursts in an unstable form. That does not mean that they are unreal. It just means they are undeveloped abilities. Just as if a child is brought up in an environment that suppresses the full development of his intellect. He will grow up with a weak intellect, but the potential for its full development remains. Just because it's weak now doesn't mean that he can't develop it. So it is with these abilities or parapsychological powers, and we are meant to eventually develop them. But even behind that is a still greater truth, which is that essential oneness which is our spiritual dimension. And that is our greatest destiny and highest potential of the human being. And it is towards that, that we must focus most importantly now. Because if we focus only on the occult and stop with that, we will only add to the chaos. Bring into effect more powerful influences than even the atom bomb. As you know,the ancient traditions speak of Atlantis destroying itself by the use of such occult weapons. There are quite interesting descriptions of such weapons in the Indian traditions--in the Mahabharata-- which are not too different from some of the most powerful atomic weapons of today. But they were not physical atom bombs. They were powers which were occult used in a certain way for that result. These are possible. And we will destroy ourselves if we continue to remain at the same grade of consciousness with more powers. That's why the most urgent need today is to transcend even the occult possibility. and aim straight at the unitive consciousness. And it is only by change of our consciousness that humanity will rise to a new level of being in which all of this potential--outer and inner-- will be available to us for its proper use. www.globalonenessproject.org