Tim Wyatt – England
The author, ever active. Here photographed in a film studio, working on yet another project
In esoteric circles the phrase ‘divine discontent’ is sometimes deployed to describe an inner appetite which can never be satisfied by material goods or worldly rewards. It’s a potent urge to discover a world and consciousness deep within and yet far beyond the self. In other words, it signifies a spiritual hunger, whatever ‘spiritual’ means to you. (And this means many different things to many different people.) Essentially, it’s a gnawing knowing within that something vital is missing.
In a chaotic, confused world of perma-change and conflict this interior drive for something else intensifies – as indeed it does when many people reach a pivotal moment in their lives and start posing those big questions: Why am I here? Where did I come from? What’s the purpose of it all – if any? Is there more to me than my physical body?
Eventually, many find that even over-abundant and affluent lifestyles, decadent amounts of material wealth or even overarching power and position fail to satiate an indeterminate inner hunger for something unrecognisable and unfathomable which transcends these outer trappings.
Our modern vacuous culture, underpinned by money, greed, narcissism and status, has failed to fulfil deeper needs and created a spiritual vacuum instead. The flailing uncertainties which pass for societal norms these days have spawned a fluid ‘pick and mix’ morality which because of its flexibility is no morality at all. Consumerism dictates that more wealth and chattels will be the universal cure-all for every dissatisfaction. But this is an equation which never balances. There’s always a missing element. And it’s non-material.
A world drained of spiritual currents is a world destined to go mad. And this is precisely what we see happening all around us – a worldwide mental meltdown. The eye-watering profits accrued by the manufacturers of pills to counteract this collective insanity are clear proof that this mass malaise of the mind has gone global.
As I and many others have observed countless times before, religions are age-old antidote to fill this vacuum. The problem is that they pretend to be spiritual but are often quite the opposite. These brotherhoods of the blind and bigoted hijack spirituality and act as sole custodians pretending to own it. Their key message is that only through their priests and intermediaries can one access the higher realms and departments of the divine. Direct access is denied. That would be very bad for business and a lot of holy men would be looking for another job.
Religions have proved to be an enduring menace to the human race with their divisive dogmas, pernicious politics and general weirdness. They promise something they can never deliver. The world is still gripped by a cartel of faiths who largely insist you can only aspire to godhead via one of these key brands. All other routes are roads to hell. For obvious reasons religions frown on a do-it-yourself approach because that way you can no longer control your flock or extract wealth from it.
And yet recent surveys reveal around three-quarters of the world’s people continue to identify with one religion or another. However, I suggest that over time this proportion will lessen as people continue to stray beyond permitted doctrinal frontiers. The real spiritual revolution unfolds when sufficient numbers of people experience that divine discontent that neither governments nor religions can plug. The revolt really gets into gear when people realise that all spiritual journeys are essentially personal adventures of discovery and not package tours supervised by bishops, imams, monks or rabbis.
This revolt is further fuelled when individuals come to the often sudden but stark realisation that their destiny doesn’t lie in the hands of oddly-garbed religious figures but solely in their own. And this represents not only graduation from their dogmatic and child-like assertions but liberation from a constricted mind-set where free thought is strictly verboten.
Free-thinking is a vital ingredient of spiritual progress.
As I’ve also frequently observed, religions will persist for many generations to come. Some may even grow and strengthen for a while. Some will weaken, fragment and collapse. Others will maintain a steady state.
And yet all across the globe a spiritual awakening is taking place in numerous different forms and many locations. A more mature less cultish approach is being adopted by some when it comes to those big questions of life and death. People no longer blindly trust or believe anyone or anything the way they may have done in the past. The modern world makes us question everything and when we do, we realise that religions simply don’t have plausible answers, merely creeds and clichés.
Nor does that most pervasive of all secular religions – scientism and the holy grail technologies its fathered. Despite what it asserts, science offers answers only to tangibles. It can tell you how things happen but not why. These underlying metaphysical motives represent a forbidden kingdom for science and are about as welcome as a crazed gun-toting fanatic in a busy market-place.
Unlike the past when the precursor to science was known as natural philosophy, science has now alleviated itself of most of the philosophical stuff. For example, as far as current mainstream thinking is concerned the universe suddenly sprang into existence approximately 13.8 billion years ago in something called The Big Bang. This remains a theory but is widely accepted as proven fact. However, not all astronomers agree with this premise.
Does science ever ask the question, what – if anything – existed before this ‘singularity’ chose to explode and create a cosmos? Was the universe empty before all of this? And most importantly, do they ever ask why this event took place? Who or what was behind it? What was the motivation? These questions can’t be answered using test-tubes, atom-smashers or gathering terabytes of data.
In fact, science flinches from addressing these issues. Religions dodge them, too. Catholics are informed that speculating on what existed before The Creation amounts to heresy. Only God knows why he created the universe. We as junior occupants of it are not entitled to conjecture about it. It’s God’s business and his alone.
The strictures of science and the constrictions of religion can’t last for ever and the new age we’re entering may radically reform both. The communications revolution of the past century has radically altered the landscape by offering a plurality of views about everything. And since people are freer to question those previously undebatable taboos of the past, there is a gradual but inevitable swing away from organised religion.
In the West at least, growing numbers of people are choosing a more personal and customised spiritual path drawing on a synthesised mix of ancient truths. The proportion of people describing themselves as ‘spiritual but not religious’ is on the rise. There appears to be a growing appetite to re-connect with the natural world and all its kingdoms. The use of meditation to draw out inner knowledge and/or connect with wider realities has become widespread. Children are taught it even though religions such as the Greek Orthodox Church continue to denounce such practices as pernicious black magic akin to wizardry or animal-sacrifice.
These days more of those experiencing divine discontent are choosing to eschew traditional means of discovering and developing their own spiritual natures – not that religions ever really encouraged this.
For many decades now, invisibly and quietly, a new occult movement has been gestating in many different guises and locations cemented together by a body of timeless wisdom which precedes and supersedes our current understanding. This Ageless Wisdom or Perennial Philosophy (other terms are available) is being resurrected and re-embraced.
This wisdom has always been with us but sometimes lies dormant and concealed for long ages during eras of ignorance or decadence and preserved by a select few. From time to time aspects of this eternal wisdom are revived to suit the needs of the moment.
The recipients of this ageless and wise knowledge are those who are seriously attempting to free themselves of whatever mental, religious and materialistic shackles prevail and impede their progress. For some, possibly only a few, when divine discontent becomes sufficiently potent they’re mysteriously directed towards this particular current.
But this route still remains a backroad rather than a superhighway.
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Tim Wyatt is an esoteric author, filmmaker, researcher and journalist based in England, Greece and occasionally elsewhere.
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