Our eye is a prisoner, trapped by the limits of its very function. It perceives only the barest fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum – indeed, must limit itself to remain sensitive. But there is so much else out there, so much more to the “bigger picture” of the universe. We see only the barest fraction of it.
In past times, the invisible wavelengths were unknown to exist: ultraviolet, infrared, gamma rays and x-rays. In some cases their effects were felt. People knew to get out of the sun, but they didn’t understand why they burned. They ascribed the cause of sunburn to something else, like heat, without answering why plants and animals don’t also burn.
The mind is able to free the eye from its prison. Through understanding, experiment and the application of reason, we discovered the whole spectrum of energy and can now train ourselves to see with a clearer sight than merely what the eye will allow.
But what can free the mind from the prison of its own conceptions? What if there is a larger world at play, whose effects also touch human lives, but whose cause is not readily accessible to inquiry or argument? Despite the amazing accuracy of science, it leaves wholly unanswered the question of love, purpose, fulfillment. Like skin left in the sun, we feel anguish in places no probe can reach, with any reasons given leading to more questions unanswered than addressed.
One of our extra capacities is faith: that even if snomething is wholly imperceptible, yet it may exist. When the Old World did not believe in the American continent, and instead believed the world was flat, it did not mean that other cultures were not rising and falling here, even though it had little perceptible impact on the rest of the globe.
What if the effects of another world are happening here every day, which we discount because the mind has no answers? Like: dreams, inspiration, miracles, or those Who call themselves the Prophets of God. What if all of these are evidences of the influence of another world, but the mind in its prison is incapable of perceiving of them as such?
If the mind is our highest value – if it can offer happiness, fulfillment, and a better future for mankind – then it deserves to lead us. But I don’t think it can. I think that, like the eyes, it is an organ of perception that can no more offer us meaning than it can see beyond its own limits. We certainly know about happiness, but to go out and find it still eludes even some of the most brilliant people.
Meanwhile, faith can take us places that reason cannot. Faith can follow dreams which to every mind seem impossible, but that in the end come true. Perhaps faith is our doorway to freedom, and beyond this door our destiny lies.