Have people given up believing in angels? They are remembered as helping humanity at times of great need, and the world could not be in greater need right now. So where are they?
It is easy to be sceptical. Coming from a science background, there was no greater sceptic than I, about non-material realities. I believed that unless you can measure and define something, then it is not real. I loved science for what I thought was the cool and clean manner in which it went about studying the physical world, free of superstition, making our lives more comfortable along the way. So, although angels sounded lovely, I did not see a need for them in today’s enlightened world.
How wrong I was! I now see a quite different reality: massive debt afflicting many nations; the corruption of professions once thought of as our protectors; a planet groaning from ecological and environmental pressures and disasters; a constant drive to find short-term solutions to financial and political problems at the long-term expense of humanity.
And yet, I also see that these very problems are driving more and more people to stop pointing the finger of blame outwards, and to start examining how our own materialistic consciousness has contributed to the decline.
Loss of spiritual awareness creates an internal vacuum, a neediness, which we may frantically try to fill through work and relationships, as well as more obviously addictive behaviours such as drug and alcohol abuse.
Because these are all materially based, and because matter and the world around us are in a state of constant flux, we can never find fulfilment that way. In time, we may end up feeling so drained as to lose much of our natural human kindness. That can happen, even while we are still pretending our behaviour is that of decent human beings. So, the vacuum inside grows even bigger.
It was finding myself on a trajectory of that kind that drove me to open my mind to non-material realities, through the practise of meditation and spiritual study.
At first, I drew strength from the peace and happiness radiating from my teachers. Then, over time, I began to access for myself the deep awareness that I am an eternal soul – a being of consciousness, playing a part on the world stage through the miraculous, but temporary, ‘costume’ of the body.
As I learned to access the positive qualities at this core of my being, I found myself increasingly connected to a source of truth whose energy removes my neediness, and displaces my negativities. It takes attention, patience, and practice, but it works.
Many are experiencing this help, and I believe this process, triggered by the Divine, is right now putting in place angels all over the world. In subtle ways, they are helping others to raise their consciousness from the physical to the spiritual. They are shown as having wings because when these are fully grown, they enable the angel to rise beyond the poisonous influences below. Staying free, they can uplift and point the way to freedom for others. The wings are of love and wisdom.
The world urgently needs such beings, living in the world but a little above it, knowing that the coming crises will pass, and meanwhile easing the pain of others while helping to fulfil God’s vision of a pure and beautiful new age.
Neville Hodgkinson is a UK-based author and journalist, and a long-time student of Rajyoga.