Daily Offerings from Alokda

We see that a miracle has two requirements, which represent two ends of a single continuum. On one is the nature of the force that performs the miracle, at the other, there is the ground and recipient on whom the miracle is performed. The force responsible for the miracle may come from the subtle physical, vital, mental, rarely the spiritual or even the very highest Divine Grace. Each brings its own stamp on the nature of the induced change. The Divine Grace works thoroughly and therefore may need more time, as it is not bound by human calculations. The other forces may sometimes seem to work instantaneously but their work is incomplete and the malady is mostly held in check rather than truly healed. It may erupt later with similar or altered appearances, necessitating repeated interventions. The ground conditions that facilitate a miracle by the intervention of the highest are faith in the Force or the one who represents it. It is further facilitated by an atmosphere of calm and peace. Detachment in the mind and nervous vital parts from the suffering is a further help. Above all, an absence of fear and anxiety about the illness and its possible complications immensely helps the process. Of course, most miracles need some kind of call from the subject, but this call should not be confused with anxiety. It may be intense and full of a luminous trust in the Divine. Luminous in the sense that one should be full of confidence that the Divine is there, looking after our bodily existence and even if it seems apparently painful and even if we do not understand it now, it is for the best in the highest sense.

Of course the materialist might always object that all this talk of unseen forces is simply an imagination. To him, all such instances of unexpected recovery are due to chance (a scientifically approved term that conceals ignorance of the forces and factors involved). Or else he points to nothing more than cases of spontaneous recovery that have run their natural course. There is, of course, some truth in the latter logic since many illnesses indeed seem to recover without any intervention, if we only allow sufficient time. But the time taken in spontaneous recovery is precisely due to this play of forces behind the scene. There is no other miracle but a conscious handling and use of these concealed forces. After all, the material scientist is simply stating a fact that illnesses do spontaneously recover and there can be no objection since this is a well-known truth. Indeed some so-called miracle makers credit themselves with this type of recovery. But these facts do not discredit the play of deeper forces. The materialist does not understand or has an a priori bias against them. He is unable to explain the phenomenon or reproduce it, though he sometimes does try to explain it away. That is to say, he plays with words that sound high and scientifically authentic, but where there is equally no evidence. The charlatan, on the other hand, simply makes a false claim of having a hold over these forces whilst he has none. The matter cannot be proved or disproved on the physical plane. It is like small children trying to guess what propels an engine or lights a bulb. So long as the process is unknown it appears a miracle; when it is known and understood, it is simply natural. So too, in the deepest sense, there is no miracle but only a play of Nature, or indeed, Supernature. Once we have understood and known its process it becomes natural to us, though it may still seem miraculous to the one who has not yet ventured into that territory. Just as children stop regarding commonplace events as magical or miraculous when they grow up and learn the process of things, so too we must grow out of our infancy and play with energies and learn about other forces in God’s world of infinite wonders. Then the scientist and the occultist shall speak with one voice. Then the miracle shall cease to be. Or perhaps the whole of life and its most seemingly insignificant events will appear as a wonder and miracle!

Alok Pandey

The third route is taken by higher spiritual forces. Although to the onlooker, a genuine spiritual intervention may be mimicked by vital and mental forces in its outer effects, there is a fundamental difference. Vital and mental forces, being those of Ignorance, work through division. They attack the illness as if it existed in isolation without heeding other issues involved in their formation. Spiritual forces work on the basis of oneness and therefore heal holistically. They take into consideration not only the present state of illness and patient’s constitution, but also the past formations, present necessity and future utility of these things, spontaneously, in the grand design of the universe. They may sometimes take time and the effects may be less instantaneous but the work done is more complete, the healing more thorough. They change the course of illness and convert it into something milder and less dangerous. The force of illness is exhausted or purged from the system in relatively innocuous ways — like catharsis through a safer route. It works upon our mind, life and body to help prepare better ground so that illnesses do not recur.

Finally, the very highest spiritual forces (for here too there is a gradation) may penetrate deeper into the subconscient layer and pluck the illness out from its very roots. When this happens, the illness may seem paradoxically aggravated for a while. The poison, held so far within the dark folds of the subconscient nature, is all at once exposed to the Light. The deeply hidden resistances of human nature that prevent our everyday life from becoming a miracle are brought to the forefront so that the highest Light may definitively work upon them once and for all. It is as if a master craftsman had taken upon himself to carve a god-image out of our mud and slowly but surely chips away at all that stands in the way. This takes considerable time and the process may extend beyond the single lifetime of an individual, yet when it is complete it is a masterpiece, a work of tremendous perfection. But hardly anyone calls this a miracle since we are so cabined in our small and egocentric view, our vision imprisoned in a narrow arc that is unable to appreciate the greatest of miracles since they are too vast to behold. If anything, we resist or lose faith and so instead of assisting the highest alchemy of Grace, we only shut the doors to it and thereby complicate and prolong our own misery.

Much group healing is like this. Such sessions are generally full of vital forces thrown out by the group members themselves and the healer or medium, often a strongly vital person, generating a strong field of vital forces that are supported by a collective hope. Functional illnesses, that is to say, not so much physical as psychological, like for example hysterical paralysis or blindness or epilepsy which is more a dissociative reaction, may seem to magically disappear but only to return in a new dramatic form or remain as an undercurrent in the hysterical personality. Many so-called miracle men thrive on this sort of mixed stuff and some make it really big because of the high drama generated by their extremely vital personality that magnetically attracts such a following. These things often rise on the crest of a popular boom and later crash as suddenly as they had appeared. Of course, people may continue to throng around such individuals because that is the usual psychology of the sufferer. They do not mind trying it out even if it does not work for the moment. In any case, the intensely vital atmosphere, combined with heightened expectation, facilitates an emotional catharsis and so attracts people. Most men relish emotions on display and to that extent this catharsis itself partially helps. It is as if by sharing this group enthusiasm, we forget for a while our personal grief and pain. This is not so much caused by any great or astounding power on the part of the medium, but rather due to the very nature of group psychology!