A 'miracle' is a singular or statistically improbable phenomenon that is difficult, if not impossible, to explain by modern science - a science that requires any empirically valid phenomenon to be, at least, repeatable (i.e., occur regularly) and not falsifiable (i.e., there is no other known explanation).
There are many phenomena, such as the creation of the universe ('Big Bang') and Life on Earth, that we accept as 'fact' but fall into the category of miracle as, from what we understand, they happened only once and are completely inexplicable.
Even at a less miraculous level, statistically, the probability of being born is, for all practical purposes, impossible. There are about 100 million sperm per ejaculate, and only one sperm fertilizes an ovum - so, the odds of 'You' being 'You' is about 1 in 100 million (the odds of winning the Lottery are far better) - yet, here You are - an impossible event!
The only thing we can know 'directly' is the experience of our own consciousness - everything else, every other form of knowledge, we can know only indirectly through inference. Yet, it is not possible to demonstrate that we have consciousness under the current methods of science. So, here lies the conundrum - the only thing we can really know for ourselves is the only thing we cannot prove to exist to others - this is the very definition of 'Faith'.
Genuine miracles are not 'supernatural'. They are workings of the universe we don't yet understand or need to understand in a different way. They should not be dismissed as fanciful thinking as genuine miracles have had, and continue to have, a significant impact on the world, and particularly for Soul creation.
For example, the Soul qualities of well-known spiritual personages of history attest to their unique and rare achievements - its what makes them stand out and deepens the mystery of the hidden forces that shape our world to 'fuel' (literally provide the energy for) further spiritual endeavors.
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ
There is no reported miracle more significant or impactful on humankind in the last two thousand years than that of the purported resurrection of Jesus Christ.
There is virtual consensus (or at least a non-controversial fact) among historians that Jesus lived and was crucified and died by the Romans as reported in the Bible's 'New Testament'.
Additionally, it is almost certain that Jesus's body was laid in a tomb where it was sealed with a large stone (weighing several tons) and protected by elite Roman Guards at pain of death (as the Roman and Jewish leaders were concerned that Jesus's Disciples would steal his body) - and then the tomb was found empty several days later.
What is certainly indisputable is that a short time after Jesus's death, the Apostles (Jesus's Disciples) and over five hundred devotees of Jesus reported 'experiences' that immediately and profoundly transformed their lives.
Hundreds of individuals from a previously small, disempowered Jewish sect (known later as Christians), who were fleeing for their lives from fear of persecution by the Jews and Romans after Jesus's crucifixion, suddenly 'transformed' to people who were willing to undertake immense sufferings and hardships, even to the point of death (many were martyred), to spread the Gospel across the ancient world.
These people, either individually or collectively, reported meeting and communicating for some time with the resurrected Jesus after his death. A miracle in the full definition of that word - it shook them to their core.
Even Jesus's brother James, a skeptic of the teaching, was transformed by such an experience to become a critical leader in the newly forming 'Church'. Eventually, he was stoned to death for his beliefs.
The most famous example, reported in the Bible's 'Book of Acts', was Saul of Tarsus, a prominent Jew, who made it his mission for many years to persecute Christians for their blasphemies wherever he could find them.
One day, on the road to Damascus to hunt down Christians, he reported that he had such a profound encounter with the risen Jesus that he renounced his position and title (and even changed to a Roman name, 'Paul') to live out the rest of his life in constant strife, poverty and suffering preaching the Gospel - finally being martyred in Rome.
For the next three hundred years, thousands of men, women and children sacrificed themselves to live and preach the Gospel of Love against a culture of barbarous cruelty. Without these sacrifices (and many more over the next seventeen centuries), the birth of the modern world, particularly the western world, would have been still-born.
Miracles
Whether the resurrection of Jesus (or any miracle) is fact or fiction is still debated, and will continue to be debated as it raises too many distressing questions for the modern mind - for if the workings of miracles are accepted in the main, it would shatter the very idea of ourselves.
But we can have our own insight, at a personal level, in trying to understand the radical actions of people inspired by genuine miracles against insurmountable odds by asking ourselves one question:
What kind of experience would it take to transform my life in such a way as to pursue a radically different direction?
The response to the above question is intimately tied to the creation of our own Soul because we need to experience the power of transformation before we are able to transform.
Miracles, big or small, are able to open a door to an unseen reality as they defy the one we habitually observe. In the end, it is up to us, through our own efforts to verify the legitimacy of genuine miracles, that can inspire us to seek further, higher and deeper into the mystery of the unknown.
We need miracles every day, whether we see them or not, understand them or not, believe in them or not, to act as catalysts for the fundamental changes to the 'energetic chemistry' of our own Being that can transform ideals into actions and actions into reality. The objective of Soul creation is no more and no less than Faith made Flesh.
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