by Tham Poh Peng

Created on: July 18, 2009   Last Updated: July 19, 2009

The world is coming to a spiritual awakening. If you look around you, people from all walks of life are becoming more conscious of the spiritual side of themselves. They are asking questions such as: 'What is going to be like when we leave this world?', 'Are we going to a place where we would finally rest in peace?', 'What is heaven like?', 'Is there life after death?'

Countless books with eye-catching titles on spiritual matters, mind control, religion and other new-age science have mushroomed over the last decade. And more is on the way.

As I see it, humans are gradually tuning in to the 'one source' that has always been there. It is the silent, unspoken, ever-present intelligence that is pervading the ether.

This ever-present intelligence is known by many names throughout the religious and spiritual communities. Some people call it The Universal Intelligence, The Ultimate Reality, Oneness. Others may know it as The Formless, The Unborn, Cosmic Consciousness, even God.

Spiritual and religious books say that the name for this 'unknown reality' or 'intelligence' is really not that important. It is just a label we put on something. In some spiritual books it is said that in actuality we do not know what it is. Have you ever asked the question, 'Why do we call a tree 'A Tree?'' If you sit down and ponder, you would realize that we could in fact call it anything we want. How about calling a dog 'a cat' instead? If we have been taught to call a dog 'a cat', then this would become the permanent label we carry with us in our life.

Language is indeed needed as a means to convey ideas and meanings in life but it is not an end in itself nor is it an absolute truth in some ways. As we must have read in so many books, the adept or the saint could not use words to describe the spiritual experience he was undergoing. Words simply failed to put a specific finger on the unknown reality and label it. As some scriptures say, the unknown reality cannot be labeled. Once it is labeled, it is no longer unknown. This is a paradox and I believe that you would only know the answer once you have experienced it.

So, if you look at 'a tree' and take away the label, what do you see? I have a friend who had expressed shock to me when I posed that question about the tree to him. He replied to me with a puzzled look: 'If that is not a tree, then what do you call it?' I simply told him to call it whatever he liked. We laughed.

I have

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>