In Search of Miracles🔗

From time immemorial, human beings have been constantly searching for miracles or extraordinary happenings, as we call them.

Almost all religions or spiritual societies have answers for the multitude of happenings which are beyond the scope of logic. Incidents that we cannot explain logically, we term as miracles simply because we no longer need to explain them or understand them once we start calling them miracles.

Whenever a miracle was understood and explained…a new religion came into being. The search and efforts to seek solutions or to demystify the happenings beyond logic resulted in the formation of new religions and an understanding of these energies.

Miracle is only 'cause and effect'. Let us look beyond it by first understanding the word 'miracle'.

Patanjali, the greatest spiritual navigator ever, declared emphatically that there is no phenomenon on the planet Earth called miracle as every happening is due only to a cause and its effect. If the cause is unknown, it is understood to be a miracle.

One of Patanjali's major contributions to mankind was to show how spirituality is a science by itself. Man by nature has a curiosity for the extraordinary and the supernatural which he could not understand. He has been obsessed by the power that could be derived from exploiting these events. Patanjali for the first time showed scientifically how these events happen…what kind of power could be achieved by understanding these events and which technique would yield certain kinds of power. He first taught how miraculous powers could be achieved; then proceeded to demonstrate that whatever then happened was a miracle.

He has given us a two-pronged solution for life…first, the power to achieve miracles and next, the technique to see everything in life as a miracle.

One can adopt any one of two lifestyles…either to live as if there were no miracles in life or to live as if everything was a miracle. Patanjali has explained both kinds of lifestyles.

However, an analysis of whether or not a search for miracles would be of any help to us in our day to day life would be in order. It can create inquisitiveness or an idea that there is something beyond what is perceived or understood by our five senses. While it can serve as an inspiration to look for the extraordinary, the search for a miracle itself, as an end by itself, can hardly be of any use. The search should lead towards the realization that there is a higher dimension to life. This slowly and inevitably leads one to the conclusion that it is necessary to look beyond the miracle.

Go beyond Śakti, to Buddhi!

A miracle is nothing but the power or śakti to make dreams into a reality. Next is buddhi or the intelligence to realize that what is perceived as reality is actually a dream. Our search is right if it begins with śakti and eventually leads us to buddhi. If our search stops with the achievement of merely powers to perform miracles, we have missed the real miracle, which is Existence or the Universe. The greatest miracle is in realizing the universe in our being, or our being in the whole universe.

The past and future are both mere projections of the present!

In this path, on this spiritual search for the unknown as it were, we encounter miraculous powers at several stages but if our energy settles at the second step of intelligence, we get the power of intuition, which is the power to see things before they happen. This may appear to be illogical but in reality, is not so.

Whatever we think of as past or the future, is actually a projection of the present. For instance we now have a new theory in physics, that of a parallel universe…that if there is a black hole somewhere, there is also a big bang happening simultaneously elsewhere. When we cannot connect the two, we think of them as two independent incidents. If we can, we understand them to be simply cause and effect. It is concluded that even the movement of an atom has an opposite reaction elsewhere in the universe. If this concept is understood, you will also realize that the future and past are not independent of each other, but deeply related to the present.

Try to conceptualize time as a shaft, the past and future at its two ends with the present in the centre. We never really touch the shaft but are always pulled either to the past or the future. That is to say, we always live either in the past or the future, never in the present. When we live in the present, we touch the time shaft. Eternity is the past, present and future…we can touch eternity only when we are in the present moment. When we do so, we understand that the past and future are not independent of the present, but merely extensions of it.

For example, there may have been instances when we experienced the present situation sometime earlier in our life, an incident of déjà vu, as they say. When we experience the present moment at least once, when our consciousness drops into the present moment, in those moments we get a glimpse of the future and we feel as if the same situation has happened already. At that moment we touch the time shaft.

We experience the whole universe as a projection of the present moment, that the past and future are deeply dependant on it. We understand the bridge between the past and future. But we always miss the present moment. We always try to find the wrong solutions in life by trying to alter the past or develop the future. But this exercise is pointless as we have control over neither the past nor the future. This is possible only when we do something about it in the present moment; but sadly, this is something we never do.

Let me repeat…Heaven and Hell are psychological, not geographical!

Doing something related to the present moment is meditation. While sitting quietly with our eyes closed can be meditation, and most often understood to be meditation, any technique, be it eating or walking, which brings us to the present moment is also meditation. Our problems can be solved only by that technique which brings us to the present moment.

In the ancient Hindu system of Vedic time measurement, there is a concept of a unit of time called kshana. Sages of ancient Bharat measured time through the concept kshana. Kshana is not chronological time. It was not measured as the amplitude of a pendulum or the frequency of an electronic chip. Kshana was not generic time, but individual time. Kshana is the time between two thoughts. My kshana and your kshana are different.

In the case of the average person, in whom the mind is constantly active, desires and thoughts pour out without a stop…the time between two thoughts is very small, extremely small. In the case of an enlightened being, who is a no mind state, in whom there are no thoughts…kshana is infinite.

Kshana is the time between two thoughts. It is the space between two thoughts. This is the time and space that Buddha referred to as sunya, and that which Shankara referred to as purna. It is the no mind zone…the mindful zone…in which you touch base with yourself. It is that present moment in which you come face to face with the divinity within yourself and recognize the cosmic energy that you are part of.

When we are in that kshana, we are truly aware…we are energized and refreshed. Meditation takes us into that awareness.

When we are in front of an enlightened Master who is in a no mind state without thoughts our own thought level comes down, and kshana becomes longer. Without even trying we become calmer…more peaceful, and more aware.

To elaborate on this, if you were to sit with someone whose company you enjoy, you are scarcely aware of the hours that have flown by. On the contrary if you were to sit with someone whose company is distasteful to you, even a short period seems like an eternity. They say Hell is eternal…this is because time never moves in Hell!

Let me present a simple equation that might seem paradoxical at first…if the number of thoughts is more, time moves slowly and if it is low, time appears to fly. In the East, the basis for measurement of time is the mental state. This is why it is said that for the devas or heavenly beings, a year of a human being's time is equal to a day for them. This means that if the number of thoughts is less, if the frequency of thoughts is low, we would be in Heaven!

It must be understood clearly that Heaven and Hell are not geographical concepts but psychological. More number of thoughts signifies Hell and less number signifies Heaven. It is the psychological time which decides whether you are in Heaven or Hell.

If we can touch the time shaft for 21 kshana, we will know our whole future. But we never let ourselves to be in the present moment…we are never where our bodies are. For example, if we are physically at home, we are mentally in the place of our work or if we are at work, we are thinking of something else. If we are here, we may sure that we are not here! If we have nothing to worry about, we invent reasons to worry. For instance, if today has gone well for us…we are worried that something unfortunate may befall us tomorrow!

When we touch the time shaft, we get a glimpse of the past and future and we achieve the power of intuition.

In the first level of energy, we therefore get to know the future. In the next level of energy as our being solidifies further, we achieve the state called siddhi, which is the power…power of altering the future.