“The boldness of asking deep questions may require unforeseen flexibility if we are to accept the answers.” - Brian Greene¹

As with any of the really important issues in life, discussing the hard Questions like politics and religion, people react with amazing variety. Anger for some, discomfort for others. Some just don’t “get it” and some just don’t want to “get it”. Some are indifferent, while others are deeply effected.  This site is of coursed dedicated to the last. 

The indifference is even apparent in some contemporary theologies such as the modern spiritualism.  I found a web site while doing my research that is an apotheosis² of contemporary pop spiritualism and it’s dismissive point of view:

“The realization that I needn't have answers to the Big Questions [original author’s caps], needn't seek answers to the Big Questions, has served as an epiphany. I lie on my back under the stars and the unseen galaxies and I let their enormity wash over me. I assimilate the vastness of the distances, the impermanence, the fact of it all. I go all the way out and then I go all the way down, to the fact of photons without mass and gauge bosons that become massless at high temperatures. I take in the abstractions about forces and symmetries and they caress me, like Gregorian chants, the meaning of the words not mattering because the words are so haunting.

Mystery generates wonder, and wonder generates awe. The gasp can terrify or the gasp can emancipate. As I allow myself to experience cosmic and quantum Mystery, I join the saints and the visionaries in their experience of what they called the Divine...³”

I can empathize with the author’s passion. A strong working knowledge of science allows us to contemplate creation in ways like never before. Ways that are not only new, but are changing every day as we continue to learn more about this vast cosmos in which we live. It is good to rest assured that everything is alright. Much of what enlightenment appears to be is about a “divine” acceptance. A feeling deep down that things are going as they were meant to and there is nothing to fear from existence even though we may experience fear within existence.

An epiphany can be an important step towards Understanding. An epiphany, like awe or any other human emotion, is, however, transient. The impact of it wears off in time. Unlike enlightenment which is described as representing a totally new level of experience and is a permanent acquisition. Accepting a single epiphany or other moment of religious rapture, as being an end to itself, is a spiritual trap. An epiphany, as an end in itself, is just another way of falling into the trap of blind acceptance whether religious or scientific. It sooths the soul into a ‘happy place’ which, in its comfort, becomes as dismissive as traditional religious belief systems.

For the Serious Spiritual Seeker, the adage ‘life is a journey not a destination’ is a shining light in the dark. The true Seeker in not just looking for a comfortable answer. The truth that will change everything is recognized as something that will be known and understood in the mind - not a fleeting emotional experience not matter how intense it may be. And it is a life’s work that we will probably never complete - for want of genetic resources perhaps - and one may never achieve ‘Cosmic Consciousness’. Yet we accept that before we Believe and forget about it. Accept the journeys end. Because after awhile, the old Divine Discomfort slowly creeps back in.

The “realization that I needn't have answers to the Big Questions” is declaring in no subtle way that the journey, for him, had reached an end. My guess is that in time the author will find a greater need to recognize the ‘journey’ element of life and continue to feel the compulsion to seek, shape, and refine his understanding of spirit (and the Other World if it actually exists).

Searching for the answers to the RBQs is as important for us as are the answers themselves. Allan Watts once noted that what we are asking about existence is not so much a question as a kind of ‘questioning’. We wonder about it. We marvel at it. So when I got to the part about “Mystery generates wonder, and wonder generates awe” I could relate to the emotional aspects of ‘questioning’, but was in total disagreement with the author’s conclusions. For the mind in the here and now, this is just the same kind of touchy-feely thinking that I abhor in the Alternative Healing community because they use it in the same manipulative ways that religious groups do. Awe is fine. I find awe in many things in my life, from both the lofty world of religious thought to the mind boggling scientific discoveries. But awe is a still a feeling. And like all feelings, transitory or fleeting. Without leading to UNDERSTANDING, it is nothing more than a touchy-feely warming of the cockles that is nice for awhile and then the real world sets in again. The rent is past due, your daughter is “doing it” with a bum, your father has cancer, etc.

Only by delivering understanding (or even enlightenment if you can be so lucky) to your Mind can provide an attitude of acceptance in ALL of life's aspects and provide continuous relieve from the Divine discomfort without fail. I should note, in all fairness to the (as yet unknown) author sited above, that in order to reach the point of experiencing the kind of epiphany that he/she describes, one would have to be well acquainted with the driving ‘thirst’ for knowledge that is a prerequisite for the kind of mental expansion we are referring to as cosmic consciousness. Recall from Part Two that the physical brain is best served with exercise - as with the muscles. We have seen an actual increase in the measured diameter of the brain after an extended period of a mental workout. The author’s clear knowledge of physics, lays the foundation for that moment of clarity and connectedness with the All that, for him, signaled a moment where further seeking was no longer important. I would be curious to see where this person is “at” today. I hope he finds his way.

For the Serious Spiritual Seekers, an epiphany is not enough. We want more! Well cheer up. More is about to happen. If nothing else your forward movement through time with an open and inquiring mind ensures more epiphanies and greater and greater Understanding. There are many avenues of approach to a Unified Mind Theory (just kidding - I made that up - but maybe a useful new jargon, eh?) or grappling with the problems and fears of life in a sane manner. I say this because, as Alan Watts once said, if you are in-sane you are out of connection. Whereas connectedness is an inherent feature of enlightenment, cosmic consciousness, God consciousness, or whatever term you wish to use.

As we saw in Part One, besides addressing the communication needs with the Other World, the primary function of religion was to provide answers to the Mind’s questioning of it’s place - and importance - in the scheme of things. Lets take a minute and look at them one at a time. The importance of each will vary between individuals, but they are consistent in all cultures.

#1 pg 108, The Elegant Universe - Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory - Brian Greene, W.W. Norton & Company, Copyright 1999.  [Back to Text]