Blind Reality

There's this bible story of the Blind Man of Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-25).

Mark 8:22-25 22 And they came to Beth-sa'ida. And some people brought to him a blind man, and begged him to touch him. 23 And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the village; and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands upon him, he asked him, "Do you see anything?" 24 And he looked up and said, "I see men; but they look like trees, walking." 25 Then again he laid his hands upon his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and saw everything clearly.

This is not just one of those spectacular healings of blind people by some or other magician.
It's one of the most powerful teachings in the bible.

It all has to do with the question:

Why did Jesus heal the blind man in two stages?

The answer to this question lays in the next recent scientific insights.

A new study on blind people who regain their sight, by Ione Fine and Donald MacLeod of the UCSD ( University Of California - San Diego ) shows:

ScienceDaily The two-year study focused on the experiences of Michael May, who, after having been completely blind since the age of 3 1/2, successfully underwent an experimental limbal stem cell transplant in his right eye at the age of 43. After regaining his sight in March of 2000, May, like many others who have regained their sight after decades of blindness, could see the world, but could not interpret what he was seeing. Two years after surgery, he still lives in a world of abstract shapes and colors instead of the environment of recognizable objects with three-dimensional shapes that normally sighted people take for granted.

This study explains scientifically that making a blind person see, consists of two stages:

• making it physically possible to let someone see
• make the person understand ( interpretate ) what he sees

It's (always) astonishing that the bible teaches us something that we can only seem to understand with the science insights of 2004.
This contributes to the fact that the bible is an authentic source and that the words of Jesus, even in our era, can teach us on how to develop science.

Spiritual View
But there's also a congruential spiritual view on this story.

When we live in our world and just look at things superficial, we are constantly confused.
We live, so to speak, as in a "blind reality". However, by reading the holy scripts and the words of Jesus we receive insight and are able to interpretate and to understand the things we see.

This levels us up to a higher level of consciousness and makes our lives more valuable.

This way leads to the life that was "ment to be".

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