By Mitchell J. Rabin

“May you live in interesting times…” is a phrase bandied about not infrequently these days, perhaps because we all know that we do, and that there’s an “interesting” twist to this “grant”.  It is not exactly “May you be among the  blessed”, but has a near sardonic tone to it.

Attributed to the Chinese, and said to have been a curse we actually have no extant documentation of this.  We have primarily an Occidental source, none other than Robert F. Kennedy in a speech he gave in South Africa in 1966.  No matter what the source of that phrase, or the source of these “interesting times”, certainly we can agree that these are. 

With science and consciousness beginning to hold hands once again after a long divorce effected by the Roman Catholic church, an institution that does not believe in divorce, and with spirituality emerging outside the box of the temple or the church but  blossoming in the streets and in the sanctuary of our daily lives where it is most needed and useful, we are bearing witness to a renaissance in thinking and being.  It’s like a veil—in place for a long time-- is lifting.

About the relationship of science to religion and spirituality, it is interesting to note that the divorce occurred in the Western part of the world, but not the East.  In the west, a bifurcation was forged by the church fathers between faith in God and the workings and observations of science.  One would ask of course, why?  If all things are of God, what’s the trouble?  It is not only worthy of scrutiny, but one could even argue, even more worthy!  To think that something of God were to be found in every molecule, every atom explodes the world in Divine Joy.  But, I submit that it was the fear of the church fathers and their own wavering faith and lack of deeper understanding of the Divine Reality that had them buckle under the force-field of fear and pursue the force-field instead of economic and political power.  They abandoned the joy of observation and the miraculous nature of God’s creation that the scientists, ironically, reserved for themselves, for a more paltry, very human dimension instead.  Not without its benefits, but these are not the joy and magnificence of Creation itself.

In the East however, such thoughts didn’t really enter into the general stream of consideration.  The cultural emphasis on Spirit, to be found all over the East, is virtually omnipresent.  Most all human endeavor is in one way or another, dedicated or devoted to deity  Additional to that has always been the rationalists who were able to recognize and articulate the underlying principles activated through ritual, through prayer, through dance and music, yogic asanas, pranayama, chanting, animal-like movements, visualizations and meditation.  The pursuit of one’s highest state of mind and being was always expressed in both religious and scientific terms, without the two being considered at odds, but rather, complementarily.  Religion and spirituality were the texture of culture itself.  There was no hierarchy, save in India with the caste system.  I would say that this system was India’s weakest cultural expression.  Even, as it is said, began with noble purpose, it devolved no doubt rather quickly into a method of oppression and condemnation.  But there was no centrally-organized church with church elders that dictated policy, neither in India or China.  The closest that come to being was through the invasions and conquest of Islam many centuries after both these cultures had well ripened.

Science in the East was seen as a stepping stone, a method by which to become more realized, more thoroughly Divinized, instead of as a means of leaving the holy behind in exchange for a material investigation as occurred in the West.  Of course there were always the alchemists and mystics who survived every oppressive institution, more or less in tact, but these were the exceptions.

Due to the farther reaches of quantum physics, discoveries in space, the world of the UFO becoming more real, religion can no longer hide the truth any longer.

At the same time as extraordinary scientific and mystical breakthroughs are occurring planet-wide, we also see the dinosaur of economic and politics lumbering along with “business-as-usual”.  What a fascinating contrast, if not a potent polarity.  Certainly we want to remain awake to the effects this dinosaur is having on the simple things, such as having clean air to breathe, water to drink and global temperatures that are sustainable.  All these of course, are in jeopardy, serious jeopardy, and who’s going to do anything about it? 

Most people are so busy paying the bills or amusing themselves with beer from the fridg to accompany the football game, we don’t have a lot of people “at home” to do the serious work of speaking truth and commandeering Spaceship Earth in the balanced direction, in harmony with its larger cosmic position.  The marriage then, of spiritual values, which are the highest of humane values, this light is best brought to the deep recesses of greed, to be easily and abundantly found in the corridors of politics and big business.  For those who may not know, greed is a function of fear.  Greed is born from the fear of “not having enough”, but ultimately, “not being enough”.  All the wealthy men in their pin-striped suits holding big positions in business and government are really not much more than programmed puppets who are self-aggrandizing at the expense of the many as a compensation to hide from what they fear is their true nature.  Beneath that fear would ultimately be a shining light, but so enshrouded it is, who, including them themselves, would know?  have a clue?

This is the work we are to do here—bring the truth forward so that the institutions that have been constructed based on fear—that is, the people who run them-- can properly re-establish themselves according to the truth.