by Joyce M. George-Knight

Created on: June 16, 2010

Death is terrifying to many of us. Because we don't know for sure what occurs once our heart stops beating and we take our final breath, we avoid the subject. Spirituality is related to death. It, too, is an unknown and in many cases, an incomprehensible concept. Oh, sure, many philosophers, spiritualists, clergy and the like have written on the subject, but since nobody has died and returned to tell their story, it is all theory.

Dreams are untouchable and they are difficult to comprehend. They have a language of their own, which people have attempted to define and create dictionaries for us to interpret them. Our subconscious, which orchestrates the dreams, is spiritual. It's something over which we have absolutely no control. And, we like control. We want to be able to do things our way. When it is taken away from us, we feel like an infant, totally vulnerable and totally dependent. As adults, that's not a comfortable place to be.

When an individual relays an incident that occurred, which involves a perceived spiritual happening, they often cringe. The spiritual world cannot be seen; it is strictly perceived. Therefore, what we are hearing then is that person's perception of a non-tangent event. Our first inclination is to disbelieve what we've heard. That is, until we witness it for ourselves.

Take for example, a widow is driving, stops at a traffic light, looks over at the car next to her and sees someone who looks like her deceased husband driving it. Or she hears a song from the 1950's on the radio, which is not a usual tune played on that station, that her husband used to sing to her. These are spiritual occurrences but non-believers would find other explanations for them.

Prayer and belief in a higher power fall into the out-of-my-control category. Because prayers are not answered immediately or exactly as requested, we tend to disbelieve their usefulness. "If there is a God, prove it to me" is the type of attitude displayed by those who are angry, hurt or despaired.

Even synchronicity is spiritually-based. We may believe in the power of positive thinking, which converts to positive energy and then brings about the results we seek. We may believe in the power of prayer to do so. Either is invisible, occurs in its own time table and without our control.

The bottom line is that people shun spirituality out of fear of the unknown. However, once they allow themselves to be open to experiencing it, a whole new world and peacefulness is theirs to enjoy.

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