Spirituality in the News

The world continues to weep daily for the senseless violence that so devastates families and communities. Today it is San Bernardino, California. Yesterday it was Cameroon, and Jerusalem, before that Baghdad, Beirut, Bethlehem, Nigeria, Tunisia, and Paris. And tomorrow…? The daily violence reflected in these and so many more incidents is deeply shocking and stirs up powerful feelings of fear, anger, outrage and sadness. The questions swirl, and consume our thoughts. Why? Who? How? It is natural to feel this way. Violence is horrible and the purpose of violence is to horrify and paralyze.

I have seen a lot of violence in my life, from gang violence in the South Bronx to communal violence in Gujarat, India. And as part of a global community of peace-builders, I hear daily stories of violence; both the stories that captivate the media, and the stories that we never see and yet are no less tragic.

Our lives depend on them.

With water, sun and soil, a tiny seed can grow into a majestic tree. The seed's power to transform so dramatically seems almost mythic in proportion, which is perhaps why seeds appear in many religious parables.

Today we've lost our connection to the life-giving properties of seeds as a by-product of our highly industrialized and "materialistic" culture, according to author and Sufi mystic Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee.

"We have not only lost the sacred dimension of the seeds but a lived connection to the sacred Earth," Vaughan-Lee told The Huffington Post.

He went on to ask, "How can life have real meaning if we have no connection to a sacred Earth?"

If we have an energy field, how long does it live on after we die?



Just this question has been asked – and answered – by Konstantin Korotkov, the noted Russian quantum physicist and professor of what is now called the Russian National University of Informational Technology, Mechanics and Optics, who has created a modern-day version of Kirlian photography.

Kirlian photography



Semyon Davidovich Kirlian, a Russian engineer, discovered that when anything that conducts energy, including human tissue, is placed on a plate made of an insulating material, such as glass, and exposed to high-voltage, high-frequency electricity, the resulting low current creates a halo of coloured light around the object that can be captured on film.

Korotkov came up with a means of capturing this mysterious light in real time by creating a mechanism, which he called the Gas Discharge Visualization (GDV) technique, which made use of state-of-the-art optics, digitized television matrices and a powerful computer.

When people think of spirituality, we often have images of angels singing, wise men in rapture, saintly women with modest demeanor, monks in meditation, masters benignly guiding us and God or some kind of greater spirit above us, leading us unerringly with total wisdom, certainty and compassion. This could not be further from the truth, which should be obvious from a cursory glance around our universe. The "heavens" are full of turmoil, as we can only conclude from the expression: As above, so below. All of creation is in constant flux and evolution, and we and the heavens are One in that tumultuous process.

Why do we cling to the notion that the heavens are perfect and harmonious? Because we want them to be. Seeking safety from the world and its trials is our life-time pursuit. We try to save enough money, marry into a "good" family, choose a partner with substantial income, amass power and/or join clubs, communities, gangs or other groups to protect us in an uncertain world.