One of the reasons for being unfamiliar with the spiritual reality
- This page is part of an ERW course, section: Divine Principle - The spiritual world.
- By John Eagles, June 7, 2006.
In my experience there are several reasons why many people don't know about or don't believe in the spiritual reality. Often there is spoken about the spiritual world, but for some this is a dream world, for others it is sheer fantasy and for again others this reality is very confusing. I do believe in a spiritual reality. I even believe that the spiritual world is more real than the physical one. All physical things will one day disappear or transform into other entities, but your spiritual existence is in principle eternal.
Nobody could prove the existence of spirit world. When you experience the spiritual world, it is reality. When you don't see or hear anything, this world is at best a theoretical concept. But how do we prove the existence of the physical world? Suppose someone comes to you and says that the physical world doesn't exist because this person doesn't feel, see or hear anything from it. How would you prove that your physical world is real? The proof for the existence of the physical world is based on our own perceptions, often extended in the form of observations made with instruments such as telescopes. Many physical phenomena or particles have never been seen directly. We only know of their existence because such particles have an effect on something else that we are able to measure.
My argument is that the existence of the spiritual world is proven either by observing it directly or because spiritual phenomena do have measurable effects. This doesn't mean yet that we understand the spiritual world based on just such observations. It just shows that something is there.
Some people do rather directly perceive the spiritual world with their spiritual senses. They actually see spirits or angels and other appearances. We know of mediums who can communicate with spirit world. The validity of such experiences is not easily proven of course. We have to believe such people or we must have our own experiences.
You can actually learn to have spiritual experiences. You can sharpen your spiritual senses. How is that done? It begins with sensing something. You don't yet know what you experience, but you realize there is something there. Compare this to seeing timber. When you are not experienced, you just see wood. You know it is wood and that's it. You see of course that one piece of wood is darker than another piece, but you would be unable to attach a more precise name to it. People who have worked with wood a lot can discern at a glance from which species of trees that wood came. I heard that Inuit people distinguish several types of snow. For me, snow may be wet or dry, but that's about it. Our eyes learn to differentiate through experience. We see something, try to give it a name, and bit by bit, over time, we learn to observe better.
A trained musician can hear which chords and tones are used in a music composition. Untrained musical ears do almost hear nothing except a melody and a rhythm and maybe a few other musical elements.
Likewise, we can train our spiritual senses. All people are different. Some people easily observe spiritual phenomena, but also they need time and experience to evaluate and categorize their observations. You can go through such a learning curve by yourself or you could get help from someone more experienced. It's essential to take time to assess your spiritual perceptions, through meditation, prayer and by thinking about it. It also helps to read about such things, though that may also be risky because so much nonsense has been written about this topic. Many people confuse dreams and visions with real spiritual experiences. Some dreams and visions show us something of the spiritual world, but there also are dreams and visions that come from another source.
In my next contribution i shall write something about another reason why it is difficult to observe the spiritual world. That is because our spiritual perception is influenced by our physical experiences.
