Epiphanies

Epiphanies spontaneously rearrange ideas, they do not change reality. Epiphanies are the collapse of old ways of seeing. Epiphanies can be common, real, life changing, terrifying or beautiful.

Spiritual epiphanies are gifts to you from Divinity, not commodities to be sold, traded, or proscribed by old men with strange garb and tattered books. Contrary to popular dogma Divine epiphanies are not rare. They are so common that William James cataloged them extensively in 1902.

Enormous religions sprout from epiphanies in a cave, on a road, or under a tree. They are much ado about nothing new. How well the religion works depends upon how well it communicates the great epiphany of the founder. But often the essence is lost and only aggressive marketing remains.

This epiphany will be mundane.

I saw it thousands of times and I never saw it at all. I looked, my eyes worked, my brain processed the message, and I missed it. You just missed it too. Just like me, your habits of seeing have prevented you from seeing old things anew.

Usually we need a clue to break us out of our habits of thought. Sometimes we need a disaster. Even a kiss will do, or a comment from a child.

Here is a tiny demonstration of an epiphany that a child showed to me. As you have walked around malls, stores, shops, or as you looked at magazines and newspapers, you have seen the same thing, repeatedly. You saw it on billboards, you saw it on television, you just saw it again.

Did you see the watches in the ads were almost always set to the same time? It's been that way for almost 100 years across a million publications all around the world.

Now look around again. Where do you think you are? Who do you think you are?

Perhaps a child will pinch your ear and remind you.