On Magic and Miracles (6) The Path of Miracles

In other words, miracles have a pathway. A miracle is not a rope trick that hangs from nowhere. Neither does a miracle necessarily ignore the conditions of earthly existence. Take the common example of a miracle cure. Now, the miracle cure may take place without the use of drugs, but it may also employ some material support in that form to shorten the course of illness. Sometimes the illness may be allowed to run its full course and yet the power working out the miracle works in such a way as to avoid possible complication. At other times, it may reduce the need for drugs and their dosage and the response is much faster than usually observed. Finally, it may not change anything in the outer form of the illness, but the mind of the patient is free from suffering, his heart spontaneously lifted to a calm gladness in spite of everything. All these are various forms and shades in the working out of miracles. To understand this, we have to delve a little into the pathway of events and dynamics of a miracle in this great chain of cause and effect.

Any event on earth passes through a chain of processes. Science, or more accurately material science, has studied some of these more outward links in the process. But behind the observed there lies a chain of subtle and hidden forces interlacing through the complex cosmic fields of existence. These forces act and interact with each other to shape outer events, much like those in the physical field. Man is himself a part of that great machinery and is used for the shaping of events. Now one can intervene at many levels in this chain. The first level is the most outward, the physical one; and science has done much to study and master the field of physical forces. One should not think this field inferior since it is merely physical. Its mastery is necessary. Nevertheless, the full significance of this field itself cannot be understood until we have understood its relation to the whole. Yet some of the physical interventions themselves are no less miraculous when seen through the eyes of people living in the previous century!

Behind the physical is another range of consciousness termed the vital. Nature’s primal energies of life are the field of its play. Deft occultists and expert pranic and reiki healers manipulate this domain and, by bringing it into play, alter the balance of physical forces in favour of speeding up the healing process. And beyond the play of life-energies, there is the play of mind-energies whose role in health and healing has already been explored and accepted even by main-stream medicine. Meditation, visualisation, biofeedback are only some of the recognised ways of altering the balance of illness in favour of cure. But mind and life energies are still powers of cosmic ignorance and so they also work much like a physical pill, unable to do anything more than flatten the physical effects of illness by intervening at an earlier chain of events. They cannot tackle the subconscient roots of illness. Of course by altering appearances they too can, like modern medicine, act with swiftness and sometimes give an illusion of cure since the symptoms may disappear. But Nature’s chain persists and, like a spider’s web or hydra’s head, it springs up again in another illness. This continues till death befalls us, unless we try to grapple with the problem at its subconscient roots. This is possible only through higher spiritual forces that are sometimes activated through ardent prayer. This takes time since the roots of the malady are very deep and since it is we who nourish these roots. It is as if we try to push away illness with one hand while clinging onto it with the other.

Miracles can take several directions. The most elementary and stunning are of course those done by modern medicine through a combination of material forces. This is necessary for those not used to invoking higher forces or those not invested with the necessary trust and patience. Some people neither want to take drugs nor fulfil the conditions for a higher intervention on a diseased body. To wait with an occasional prayer expecting a miracle to suddenly appear is to play the fool with oneself. Not that a miracle cannot happen suddenly or that prayers are useless. Prayers may yet be effective and a miracle may still happen, but it may take time.