[Prologue: The subject of Miracles has evoked a wide spectrum of interest and reaction among laymen to gullible and on to the learned and scholars to varying degrees, ranging from awe & wonder, to being totally drawn in and to a more enlightened perception of paranormal phenomena. Considering its wide interest, we present here the perception of Dr. Timothy Conway. emanating from his thorough study of the subject and extracted, with his permission, from his book Women of Power and Grace *.
But before that, it is felt appropriate to give out here a few interesting statements made on the subject by Sri Sri Ram’ for the benefit of our readers.
“There is nothing that is unnaturally miraculous and naturally ordinary. The natural and the supernatural are divisive categories of a dualistic mind “ and”where “ Sri Ram says division exists there cannot be divine vision”.
“Since thought is the outer limit of awareness and since thought imprisons us in logic, causality is the exclusion of the sense of wonder in our apprehension of life and nature. It is the sense of wonder of the child with his/her prelapsarian innocence that the so-called miraculous, the supernatural engenders”.
“If the film of familiarity and ‘selfish solitude’ blends us to nature, miracles are concessions that Divinity allows for human blindness” says Sri Ram. He further adds “All that is natural is, in fact, supernatural and all that is supernatural is natural” “Once described, a secret becomes sordid, a mystery becomes a muddle”.
According to Sri Ram “Such revelations are not meant to stun nor question normal modes of perception. It is not a prediction or prophecy. It is a glimpse into the cosmic blueprint, necessitated by predetermined cosmic function”.
“The centripetal core of spirituality is the dissolution of illusion into illumination (Spiritual Sayings of Sri Ram, Sterling Publishers, New Delhi, 1997) Once illumination becomes rooted, the love of miracles is transformed into the aim and end of all quest: the miracle of love].” T.S. Sastry
A most important issue needing clarification in our reductionist, materialistic era is the subject of miracles.
The term “miracle” originally means “that which Inspires wonder.” Numerous sages have declared that the world’s appearance itself is, truly speaking, the greatest miracle or wonder. How does it arise ex nihilo, out of nothing, like a colossal dream? How utterly Improbable and stupendous! Many physicists today are also seriously wondering about this miracle of a universe scaled on incredible proportions somehow appearing out of a mystery. primordial “inflationary moment” from timeless. spaceless nothing, a virtual particle of energy popping forth due to the enigmatic working of the laws of quantum mechanics and Instantaneously Inflating to about the size of a soccer ball before expanding more slowly In the well-known Big Bang scenario This inflationary model, we note, replaces the older idea that the silent Big Bang unfolding of energy into matter originated from an infinitely dense, infinitely massive “singularity” point-a notion that would entirely obviate any further theorizing in physics. In either case. David Bohm’s idea of an original “implicate order” is attractive as the ineffable source of this manifestation of a world.
And within this overall context of a miraculous world appearance, we use the term “miracle” in the same way that professional parapsychologists use the terms psi or paranormal. to refer to any perceptual sensitivity or behavioral output which goes beyond our current understanding of what is normally, humanly possible. Numerous women and men of past and present have realized, through unusually deep states of concentration, meditation, or devotion. an exceptionally refined level of consciousness This sublime state is characterized by freedom from distractions, an amazing degree of concentration and attention span, physical and psychological harmlessness (call it purity or goodness), maximum harnessing of “bioenergy” and, in many cases, a radical breakthrough or return to the transcendental, formless principle of Pure Awareness or Spirit (the “no-thingness,” “singularity,” or implicate order,” if one wishes to couch this in the language of physics) This deep spiritual transformation can naturally and spontaneously give rise to awesome powers of healing, clairvoyance, telepathy, precognition, levitation. transfiguration bi-location. control of the elements, creation of people’s dreams and so on. Instances of such occurrences in the cross-cultural hagiographical literature number into the many, many thousands. These Include cases such as the repeated, much witnessed levitations of St. Joseph of Cupertino. Italy (1603-1663) where the people Involved (in Joseph’s case. many churchmen and Joseph himself), did not want such phenomena to occur lest they be construed as diabolical phenomena and yet stall these paranormal psi events occurred! Such cases. Incidentally constitute an unusually sound kind of historical evidence for the existence of psi phenomena, whereas we can rightly be somewhat suspicious of “wonders” reported by overly-zealous people who want such things to happen.
Further internal evidence for the existence of these supernormal powers consists in the countless warnings rampant in spiritual teaching literature urging us not to be fascinated with these powers and not to exploit them for selfish purposes. I have found such caveats in mystical lineages of all the major sacred traditions -Hindu, Buddhist, Jaina, Taoist, Sufi, Christian, and Jewish. Why would such strong warnings be given worldwide about non-existent, impossible attainments? Do mothers repeatedly warn their children not to play with golden unicorns? Of course not but mothers do warn their children against playing with fire, a real part of our experience. So also, the sages know that the paranormal abilities are a latent aspect of our experience, and warn us not to get fascinated arising in our lives.. by them should these powers start
Yet another kind of evidence for the authenticity of miraculous happenings is that identical powers (e. g., telepathy. bi-location, levitation) are reported worldwide In cultures that were not exposed to each other because of significant spatial or temporal distances Are the wide-ranging accounts of these powers merely fantasies emerging from the collective unconscious or, more simply and realistically, accurate descriptions of rarefied human functioning?
Some minds will recoil from accepting the existence of the paranormal simply because it is an extremely rare occurrence within conventional society. But this should not stop us from accepting the authenticity of psi phenomena. Remember that, in the fairly recent past, meteors and kangaroos were declared by many scientific “experts” of the day in Europe and America to be non-existent, and discoverers of and believers in these phenomena were ridiculed and ignored! Similarly, the entire topic of the paranormal has been dismissed in our day by pseudo-skeptical groups such as CSICOP Committee for the Scientific investigation of Claims of the Paranormal-which are neither scientific nor truly skeptical in their approach to the paranormal. But are irrationally, fanatically closed-minded. While CSICOP and other similar groups have done everyone a great service by exposing a number of hoaxes and Instances of gullibility and fuzzy thinking, they tend to be guilty of throwing many babies out with the backwater by ignoring sound evidence and not trying to replicate impressive controlled studies on psi. Moreover, they have engaged in extensive propaganda to persuade academics, scientists and mainstream media personnel that “not a shred of evidence exists to support the existence of the paranormal.” (Interested readers may peruse the exposed literature by Hansen, Truzzi, Clark, et al., showing the grossly unscientific. Even dangerously cultic natural of CSICOP and stellar groups.³)
(to be continued…)