quantum leap :- spiritual reflections on a change in consciousness

8/9/2019 QUANTUM LEAP :- Spiritual Reflections on a change in consciousness

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Reflections on a Spiritual Journey : Excerpts from a Personal Journal

Peter Creagh ( 2010) Heartsease Training & Counselling , Shifnal, Shropshire, UK

QUANTUM LEAP

One small step for little Peter

Several years ago I attended a session by

Sr Ishpriya, which had, as one of its themes,the idea of a Quantum Leap. This issomething that philosophers, cosmologists,spiritual masters and many other expertsare urgently reflecting on. Ishpriyas1 talkconcerned the possibility that a next stagein human evolution couldBe a quantum leap in consciousnesses.

Now, this is a huge, complex and, possibly,controversial area. It is certainly and area where the jury is out. But this is not the mainthrust of my reflections. Rather, during her talk she posed a series of challenging

questions and one of these was the following. What is your own experience of self-reflective consciousness? Shesuggested that we might want to take this questionand to remember, and reflect upon, our earliest experience of a leap in spiritualconsciousness. This is the question that intrigued me and the one I wish to address inthis short reflection

On reflecting, whilst walking in the woods around Die Quelle, the ISA Sadhana Ashram,a favourite place for me, one of my earliest memories and experiences came back tome. Now this was a well remembered incident in my very early life. In fact it was justbefore I was 4 years old. However, the stillness and solitude of the woods in Austriacombined with the space and time for reflection brought with it a new understanding anda deeper meaning. It returned with as a greater clarity and left me with a feeling of

gratitude for this gift.

Just before my 4th birthday, my mother told me that I was going to the little ConventSchool, near our flat in Pembroke Street, Dublin. The School was run by a ReligiousOrder of Sisters. It was a free infant school for the poorer children of the then, very poorDublin. Next to the Infant School was the fee-paying school for young ladies andbetween them both was a high wall. Most of the Sisters taught in the fee-paying schooland only two were assigned to the Infant School.

Well, I was beside myself with joy and excitement and I really felt I was a big boy I wasgoing to follow my two older brothers to school. My eldest brother had just left the InfantSchool to go to the Irish Christian Brothers (IRB) School, at Westland Row. Incidentally,

the only truth about the IRB was that they were definitely Irish!. Although, in a spirit offairness and charity, it is important to record that some of them were Christian andbrotherly and tried their best to be fair and helpful.

Anyway, my mother told me that it would be great at school and that the nuns werelovely, kind and holyand that I would enjoy it. Now, for an additional important pieceof the story. The two Sisters in the Infant School were its Head, Mother Clemence andanother Sister called Consolata. The rest of the teachers were lay people, paid for by theIrish State.


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So, the Monday morning dawned. Eager and excited I rushed out of the flat,almost falling down the steps in my excitement. I raced off up the road towardsLeeson Lane, where the school was. I was proud, feeling independent and soexcited I hardly knew what to do. I was going with some friends from ourstreet, Christy White, Alec Duggan ,Phil Kearney and Sean Kelly ( who

was a year older and therefore a very big boy ! )

Now during the summer all the classrooms had been re-painted. So on entering theSchool I rushed in to, with my friends. In my haste to beat Alec Duggan to a chair, Iknocked it over and it skidded into the new paintwork, making a small mark. Bang ! I felta horrible blow to my ear. I went reeling across the room into the newly painted wall,causing more damage! . I looked up, and standing over me, with a scowling face, was SrConsolata. I was soon to learn that there was little consolation in Sr Consolata .

Peter Creaghshe yelled, she knew my name because of my brothers we Creaghboys were well known. You are a wicked boy and you will never get to heavenAtthat moment, getting to heaven was not my priority. Quick as a flash I shouted back

Well, if youre going there, I dont want to go You could have heard a pin drop. Sheflushed horribly, almost in convulsions, hit me again and shouted; Go to MotherClemence and tell her what a wicked boy you are!

I left the room in some confusion and somehow found my way to MotherClemence. I was soon to learn that Mother Clemence showed greatclemency so sometimes names do fit people! What do you wantshe asked me. So stumblingly I told her the whole story and what I hadsaid to Sr Consolata. To this day, I can close my eyes and see her, Imsure she smiled. Then she lifted my hand, and tapping it ever so gentlywith her fingers, she said Now, Peter, that must have hurt SrConsolata, so will you please go and say sorry to her. I looked at

her and said Yes Mother and left to return to my classroom.

On entering Sr Consolata barked, Well, what did Mother Clemence say ? I replied, She told me to say sorry to you Sister, so Sorry. That ended that particular incident,but my first year at school with Consolata proved to have little consolation and to bedifficult. It grounded in me a resistance to formal education and teachers which I havesince struggled with.

Now, on reflecting on this incident I now realise that it was an early sign of a shift , aleap; in self-reflection. Although I was not even 4 years old, I somehow knew whatSister Consolata was saying and doing was wrong. It did not fit with my childlike intuited

view of reality. Also it was the same with Mother Clemences response. Somehow Iunderstood this as empathy. Now, I neither knew the word nor could I even spell it!. I didnot even know the word sympathy.


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Somehow, basic values and reality are pre-language. I now realise that this is true. Afterall, it is estimated that human beings only developed language a mere 100,000 yearsago still a relatively minor part of our existence and less than a drop in the ocean ofthe history of the Cosmos . So we, as a species, have spent more time communicatingwithout language and modern research proves this. At best, about 15 % of the real

messages we convey are mere words. But little Peter knew none of this.

So little Peter learned a lot that day, far more than I realised until a recent .walk in thewoods around Die Quelle.

He knew right from wrong , despite his upbringing and cultural messages about holynuns. He knew that heaven was not a place for those who lacked empathy. He knewthat Mother Clemence was empathic and kind. Most importantly, all this knowing camefrom somewhere deep inside him a place I have been experiencing and exploring allthese years. This knowing was counter-culture. Because, in the Ireland of those days,priests and nuns were like saints placed high on pedestals and therefore they could do

no wrong. When Jesus said unless you become like a child, you cannot enter thekingdom, that was so true. Its wonderful what children can intuit, they seem to be morein touch with reality than adults. But then our culture, religion and adult society soon trainthis out of them.

So the lessons of that 1st day at school remain with me. But it was only during my walk inthe woods near Die Quelle in Austria, over 60 years later, that I finally realised their deepsignificance. But what does that matter. I have walked this earth all the years since, withthe lessons locked inside. I am reminded of a remark Ishpriya made in anotherPravachan, concerning Gods revelation and our experiences with God Nothing todate has been lost. No genuine encounter of the Mystery is lost

This is certainly true, because that experience all those years ago in the Infant Schoolhas remained locked inside the essential Peter. This was my earliest remembered leapin consciousness concerning the Source of all that is in the Cosmos. It was my firstconscious contact with Ultimate Reality, what we Celts refer to as The IndwellingPresence. For me this was and is the most important thing to remember about my lifeand the lesson I learned at a deeper level from my time at Die Quelle. Like all insightsand shifts or quantum leaps in awareness, these are moments to savour, to celebrateand to be thankful for.

Peter Creagh

quantum leap :- spiritual reflections on a change in consciousness

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