The 20th century was a dark age for spirituality

[shivatar]

Originally Posted by spiritualll

I am not talking only about the rise of atheistic regimes such as communism. I am talking especially about a lack of miracles as they were done in previous ages. For example, in Jesus' time there were plenty of people who could perform miracles and spiritually heal.

The 20th century saw a gradual loss of faith. There were fewer people who could perform miracles.

What is interesting: Even Jesus could not perform a miracle when he faced lack of faith as it's written in the Bible.

Perhaps, in a sense, in the far past of this planet, people were far more evolved, at least spiritually.

Now, the 21 first century has promises of a golden age where spirituality will be again the most important aspect of life.


What do you think?

Check again brosky, 20th century was epic AF. There were so many enlightened people it was redicilous.

What's all the fascination with Jesus? There are enlightened people alive today. There were enlightened people in the 20th century.

Jesus is more famous because he came a long time before. so it's easy to say "look how big of an impact Jesus had, he must surely have been the one".

However, what if in 1,000 years Jesus name is forgotten, and there are people alive now that people say things about like "wow, look at that person and how much they influenced the world, they gave us the world we have now (the world of 3017), they were definitely the one".

What if that happened, but you totally ignored those people because you were so transfixed on Jesus?

[hallow]

read this qoute a while back. "You have to deal with the darkness before you can see the light "

[Dargor]

Jesus' time was pretty dark too, nobody believed him and in the end he got persecuted.

[hallow]

If you really look at history, the past was an extremely "dark" time to be. The difference... media, something goes wrong and you get it force fed to you through media. In the past people really didn't care because of the darkness they were dealing with. Now people look elsewhere for it. I apologize if i offended anyone by this. But i feel not matter what it is you will find what you seek.

[spiritualll]

The 20th century was a dark age compared to what we will witness in this century.

I agree with your answers.

But I found it interesting that there were so many miracles performed in Jesus' time by different mystery schools. That spirituality eventually ended in the dark ages.

I think it was easier to perform a miracle in that time because of the people's collective consciousness. And this is surprising because the collective consciousness was very low. Perhaps they had other expectations.

The atheists of the 20th century, most of them, saw no miracles.

Originally Posted by spiritualll

What do you think?

spiritualll,

In regards to the 20th century being a dark age for spirituality, this could be viewed different ways. Some view the material world as being the opposite of the spiritual world. There is little doubt that the greatest progress in the material world was witnessed in the 20th century. One is left to draw their own conclusions..........:)

[iamthat]

The 20th century was a dark age for spirituality?

Completely disagree. I would suggest that the 20th century saw an explosion of spiritual growth.

The spark was lit in the previous century with the founding of the Theosophical Society in 1875 plus teachers such as Vivekananda plus the new availability of Eastern literature in the West.

This steadily grew in the 20th century with more spiritual books and teachers, such as Yogananda, Ramana Maharshi, Sivananda, Gurdjieff, Paul Brunton, etc.

Then came the 1960s onwards with the Mahirishi, Muktananda, Neem Karoli Baba, Nisargadatta, Poonjaji, plus a host of other teachers such as Rajneesh and Maharajji.

Not to mention the growing popularity of Yoga, Tibetan Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism, Wicca, all sorts of spiritual and mystical traditions, plus all the holistic medicines now available as well as the various environmental movements.

We may not agree with all these teachers and teachings, but the biggest change I have seen since the 1970s is that many ideas and practices which were on the fringe in those days have now become mainstream. The biggest challenge we face is to use our discrimination to determine which path is best for ourselves.

Yes, there has also been a corresponding rise in materialism and consumerism and the use of new technologies for dark purposes. Perhaps the influx of spiritual energies is pushing all these things to the surface, so humanity now faces its own healing crisis.

And what are miracles? They are natural events which are governed by laws which are not yet known. When these natural laws are eventually understood such "miracles" will become commonplace. After all, many of the things we take for granted nowadays (aeroplanes, television, the internet) would have been considered as miraculous a couple of hundred years ago.

Peace.

[spiritualll]

Thank you for your opinion. Actually, I agree. These things are true. I just wanted to make a comparison to other centuries and also to the 21st century.

Yes, there were great spiritual people in 20th century. But it was also a period of darkness... I myself could have not psychologically survive in that century without the spiritual evolution of the last years.

Perhaps you fit better in the picture of this world and are somehow stronger, but me, I could not face all that negativity and darkness, which existed at the time and which I don't want to mention here.

[Lucky 1]

Originally Posted by sky123

Miracles/healings do happen very frequently but we don't always hear about them, a simple smile or a act of kindness given with love/compassion to another can have a miraculous effect on the recipient but we may never know as we don't ask or expect results, we just give.

I agree with this.........as an example....a couple of years ago I was at a Hooters in Houston (its where a customer wanted to meet)

Our early 20 something blond waitress looked harassed and tired but doing her best to keep up with customers and orders.....Every time she came by I was struck by the fact that even though her attitude was "all business" that she had very kind eyes........and I looked at her in the eyes and said "I can tell you are a good person...you have very kind eyes" The look on her face was shock mixed with sudden emotion....like she was ready to cry.

An hour later as I was heading for the door, she came up to me and thanked me for what I'd said...that she was having a terrible day and just the few positive words from a stranger (me) had turned her evening around and she suddenly felt happier and good about herself.....

Making a nice comment to this overworked young woman improved her mood considerably and cost me nothing...

A miracle??? Perhaps not...but it gave a fellow human being a bright spot she sorely needed....and it came when she really needed it!
So perhaps I'd been put in her path that day to deliver that small miracle.

So miracles...big and small....from the kind words of a stranger that come at that moment they are most needed.....to the stranger who comes across a random car accident and drags someone out of a car right before it bursts into flames......happen all the time!

And we are all instruments of those miracles even if we don't realize it at the time..

Can't see why the 20th century was darker than any other time. In fact it was the century during which non-religious spirituality blossomed (at least, in the UK/Europe). Regimes were still tight but it got aired with less danger to the person than, possibly, two millennia ago. But it has varied according to the region, the religious atmosphere you're in. Some parts of Asia / Middle East you can still be executed for blasphemy. Will that change?