|
Home
Doors
Essays2007
Essays2008
Essays2009
Essays2010
Wisdom
Gallery
Links
Bios
Contact
|
..:: God ::..
By
Alan Schneider
Probably the central feature
of Faith, the last essay subject, is the
belief in the existence of that unified, single conscious force
superseding and eclipsing all others in the universe frequently referred
to as God. This next essay will treat this subject from a variety of
perspectives.
We are rarely neutral about
this concept, generally demonstrating fervent advocacy for, against, or
about God, and the Divine effect on this Physical Plane of
Expression. It is one of the saddest observations regarding human
awareness that we have (and continue to) commit so many atrocities in
the name of what is presumably the highest Presence of existence. Why
is this so?
Although I do not agree with
this statement, it has been said that, in fact, man created God
in his image, not the obverse process as the Biblical Book of Genesis
maintains. Certainly the naοve image of a Grand Old Man sitting on a
cloud in the sky as He oversees human affairs would seem to support this
contention. In fact, mythology is filled with just such images of the
Supreme Being male, elderly, wise, superior, and distant from
this Earthly sphere a patriarchal form that has been handed down from
generation to generation from distant antiquity. This is the first
clue to the human psychology that supports such a model of the Divine,
and we shall begin our investigation with this ancient and primitive
conception of the Supreme.
Now, the role of human beings
in human affairs has always been a matter of hot debate from scholars
right down to paupers and fools. The general presumption of common and
civil law is that we are the architects of our own destiny and actions
I determine the outcomes of my life through my
personal attitudes and behavior as the exclusive carrier of
responsibility in personal existence. This is a functional, if deeply
flawed and overly simplistic, view of things that, however, tends to
establish and maintain a certain degree of social and financial order.
If we attribute the developments on this Plane to supernatural
influences, not the least of which our own behaviors, then the door is
flung wide open to every kind of chaos and destruction in consequence.
Yet, the ultimate truth of the matter is that the locus of human control
is evidently located beyond our personal ken. So much of this
life is clearly and obviously determined by apparent chance whether
called Fate, accident, Karma, or chaos and this alone militates
against the exclusive free will hypothesis outlined thus far.
So, in our child-like
innocence and frustration over the seemingly arbitrary foundation of
existence, we were, and are, compelled to postulate either an absolutely
brutal and mechanistic universe, or a possibly intelligent one that
might somehow be swayed by our appeals. And, since the first model of
authority and order that any of us have is the Parental one, it
is not surprising that the unsophisticated mind then extrapolates this
model to the universal level, and, viola, we have the original
anthropomorphic Father Deity. And, witness the Old Testament and many
other texts of antiquity, this was often a wrathful and destructive
Deity, much like the original human model of behavior upon which it is
based, but still one that could be solicited for mercy and possible
preferential treatment producing the origin of prayer and worship.
But, this is a fear-and-ignorance based philosophy of belief that
creates fanaticism and cruelty in its wake, not kindness and compassion,
and is to be regarded with great suspicion for those reasons. It is
very sad indeed that the vast majority of believers in the world today
have this type of fear-oriented faith as the basis of their
spirituality, and the proof of this is seen in the ongoing manifestation
of religious prejudice, intolerance, and violence around the world.
It is one of the marks of a
hard-earned emotional maturity (that we, in some cases, actually
attain to) that the arbitrary nature of this existence is accepted
as just that logically inexplicable and life is carried forth from
that perspective just the same, if somberly so. In fact, we are
customarily born, possibly survive, and certainly die
as the only guarantees of this stormy and turbulent existence, and, if
we so choose, challenge the assignment of life by rising to the call for
sense and meaning for the duration. As the Buddha said, all of life
is Dukkha suffering and the first step to the resolution of
this fundamental aspect of the human condition is the restraint of
desire for all of the transitory and illusory objects of existence. If
this restraint is practiced diligently enough the eventual result is the
cessation of suffering through the inception of Enlightenment in the
perceptual condition of Satori the ego-free, non-dual state of
pure spiritual freedom. Unfortunately, nothing is more central to
basic human nature than the desire for seemingly external objects,
processes, and conditions. So it is that, much like Christ, Buddha was
sent here to save us from ourselves...and the lesson to be
learned is to suspect what we seek.
Although there is certainly
much that they have in distinction, one of the things that both Buddhism
and Christianity have in common is their relative evolution away
from the original wrathful, parental, anthropomorphic image of God.
This is at least a step in the direction of acceptance and understanding
of a more purely spiritual vision of Deity and the Divine. If we
follow the sequence of additional steps along this path, we eventually
come to the various conceptions of Spiritual Intelligence that form the
cutting edge of contemporary spirituality around the world. At the
risk of leaving much intermediate development out of the picture, and
for the sake of brevity in this essay, I am going to progress directly
to this advanced stage of belief and faith today, by examining some of
the better examples of modern, progressive spiritual thought before us.
Among the more
insightful systems of spiritual thought of which I am aware is the
philosophy and practice of Yoga, and its central premise of Karma
as the primary determinant of events on the Physical Plane of Expression
the world we know of through our senses. In the Yogic system,
suffering is born of ignorance the naοve and foolish acceptance
of the sensory world as being the only world of human experience,
and the most important one, at that when it is the world of spiritual
Truth and compassion exemplified by the Soul that is the real
origin of consciousness and physical events. It is the task set forth
by our spiritual destiny our Karma to confront the essential
ignorance of our condition through suffering until we discover
the underlying Truth that is really motivating all of the superficial
events of the senses. Yoga prescribes many techniques for the
attainment of this level of realization that constitute a lifestyle of
Enlightenment and supporting practices, many of which became
incorporated and upgraded in subsequent Buddhist practice. The
cornerstone of both philosophies is the practice of meditation
the willful and intentional turning of awareness inward to locate and
contemplate consciousness at its source the Self essentially God and
the Kingdom of Heaven within us. As this is attained, the
corresponding perception of the Kingdom of Heaven around us
develops through the projection of the Christ Consciousness into the
world of human affairs, resulting in Salvation through the spiritual
focus of the Soul while still alive on Earth living Salvation
and Sainthood.
When enough Karma has been
converted into Dharma Divine perception through suffering and
eventual Enlightenment, we are taken off the Wheel of Endless Transition
and transported into the consciousness of Samadhi and Satori, although
this is very rare in the Western world, and even rare in the East
as well. One must literally declare war on ones physical, animal
nature for the duration of incarnation, and relentlessly pursue and
destroy every vestige of desire in the process. So, why should one
even bother with these harsh and austere measures anyway?
The answer to this question
lies in the nature of God as knowable from the refined, purified human
perspective. At least in Eastern thought and practice, there is an
ultimate reality to God that can be Known and experienced while
in Samadhi and Satori, the comparable Yogic and Buddhist states of
religious ecstasy and of the supreme level of human conscious
awareness. What is the experience of reality at this highest stage of
spiritual development? What is God like when encountered in person
without the veils of ego interpretation that we so often take for the
Truth?
I have often described my
experiences of Samadhi in these essays, but perhaps another brief
description will be appropriate here. The Supreme Being had the
appearance of an infinite, omnipresent field of intense white light, the
sensation, or feeling perception, of unconditional perfect Love
and positive acceptance, and a yet deeper sense of infinite, omnipotent,
omniscient Presence there was an unseen, yet underlying and
universal, manifestation of Being associated with the experience.
I have heard this Being referred to as the I AM Presence, and
have never lost my sense of it operating in my life following my last
experience of full Samadhi, for better or for worse, because this forces
a complete reassessment of consciousness and awareness in its wake. I
have never again had the frivolous luxury of supposing that I am in
control of my life I found out where the control really is, and
why it is the deliverance of the Soul by God. I now know that
only the Divine Self is real, and all other modes of experience are
subordinate expressions of that single Truth radiating forth in Love
both from within and beyond space, time, and thought.
This includes the apparent existence of my physical form and that of the
physical world and universe both are secondary, transitory, and
illusory in comparison to the Ultimate Truth of God.
It can be taken as a given
that most of humanity will not attain this level of perception in a
specific incarnation, whether one believes in reincarnation or not.
This is the great strength of Christianity through the acceptance of
the Sacrifice of Christ represented by the taking of Communion, and
living in line with the spiritual principals demonstrated by Him, we can
participate in a similar state to that of Samadhi. The difficulty here
lies in really practicing the Gospel of Christ, as opposed
to simply paying convenient lip service to it. Again, we are at war
with our own nature when we decide to follow the Love, Light, and
Presence the great battle of Karma that is this existence,
forever. Yes, the meaning of life is that it is a Battle. It
always has been, and always will be, just as Jung so insightfully
observed.
Personally, I believe as an article of my Faith that Christ, Buddha,
Patanjali, and all of the other human vessels of Divine Love in history
were sent to this world by God as gifts of Grace and Compassion,
that anyone wishing to follow the Light would at least have examples of
how the process might be attempted and consummated. Possibly the
ultimate gift of this lifestyle, in spite of all the harsh sacrifices it
demands, is the final attainment of inner peace through my forgiveness
of myself and others.
- With Love, Alan -
(Copyright 2010, by Alan Schneider)
Return to Top
|