A SENSE OF THE SACRED
Modern man has lost his sense of the Sacred as an immanent presence in his affairs. True, a glance at human history shows that we have always had more than a strong tendency for negativity and destruction. But until the advent of modern science, our understanding of the cosmos was always linked with a sense of the divine immensity. The rising of the sun, the coming and going of the seasons, life and death – everything was a mystery, understandable only in the context of a divine Being who involved Himself directly in nature and in human affairs. The acquisition of scientific knowledge need not have changed that, but it has. Now we see a universe permeated not by a divine presence but by natural laws, amenable not only to reason but also to technology, and tractable to the will of man. In such a scenario, ask some scientists, who needs a God? But the reality is that we have simply pushed back the boundaries of intellectual knowledge; we have not uncovered the fundamental truth.
Yes, we know a little about natural forces: about the sun, the planets and the stars, about the intricate dance of particles and energy at the heart of matter, about how the body functions, and much else besides. But that need never have dispelled our sense of the Sacred. It could so easily have enriched it. After all, we still don’t know how all these ‘laws’ came into being; how we came to exist as conscious beings; where space and time, and all that sail in it, came from; and how all the particles and forces known to modern science exist in the way they do. In fundamental terms, we still don’t know what makes the sun come up. We don’t know the secrets of life and death. We don’t even know the nature of our own self.
We are still faced with a primal ignorance. But now our ignorance has become so deeply hidden through intoxication with our own cleverness that we have become unaware of our ignorance. Even with the clear evidence that our understanding of things has all but wrecked the planet in less than a blink of cosmic time, we fail to see the reason why, and we feel powerless to prevent the approaching catastrophe.
Had we but retained a sense of the sacred presence at the heart of things, we would never have embarked on this path of self-destruction. Many of the native peoples of America, Australia, Africa, and Asia have looked on aghast at the ravages wrought by ‘civilized’ man. Many of them once lived with a sense of being surrounded by a Great Spirit. Yes, there was much superstition, and unfounded belief. But is that not true of our modern age too? The superficiality of material life; the rat race of desire for possession, status, and renown; the psychological imbalances that modern people live with as a result of the unthinking and unconscious chasing of ephemeral dreams that can never be realized; the bizarre beliefs and practices of religion; the dogmatic assertions of science regarding the material nature of reality. These are the modern demons that dog our footsteps, robbing us of our innate spiritual freedom and a sense of the Divine.
Why do so many of us long for the wilderness? What are we hoping to find there? Magic? Awe? A sense of the Sacred? Yes, and we want to find ourselves, too. For within our selves, we find a still presence. Call it the One Being, call it God. Call it anything, or call it nothing – it makes no difference. We cannot, in the end, escape the One who sustains our life and being.
Why did the early Christian monks leave the distractions of the cities and head for the desert? Why did the yogis and others give up worldly life, and seek refuge in the mountains and jungles? To find solitude and stillness. To find themselves, and to commune with the divine presence.
The further we stray from our still centre, the more distracted and the more miserable we become, however clever we may be. The closer we are to our still centre, the more peace and happiness we will find within ourselves; the more we will find spontaneous happiness, even bliss, flooding our inner being, drawing us closer to the Sacred One. And with it comes wisdom and understanding. Once you’ve tasted that kind of bliss and known that kind of knowledge, you realize that it’s worth far more than the sum total of all human knowledge. And it travels with you into death as well. That alone makes it a unique and priceless treasure.