Friday, December 2, 2016

The Word "God" : a Problem for You?

Imagine how many people down through history have attempted to define this simple word: God! If "He" only knew what he started when he started it all. What a pain! So many troubles, sorrows, suffering and disappointment. "What was He thinking?"

Billions of galaxies? Parallel universes? When will it all end? Infinity? What's THAT, really? Everything, I suppose, eh? And there's some's that seez there "taint nothin' at all!" As in ZERO!

My, oh my. It's enough to make you want to go have a cup of coffee and drink cup after delicious cup to forget!

My guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, wrote in such devotional terms of God as his father-mother-friend-and beloved. Yogananda's poetic collection of "prayer-demands," published as "Whispers from Eternity," are thrilling. So, too, is the mystical literature of great men and women down through the ages. What, then, are we missing?

Such an outpouring of inspiration in literature, liturgy, music, architecture and humanitarian deeds has been offered to this invisible God-person-thing that it befuddles the modern, rational and scientific mind-set. But it also challenges the rational mind to play by its own rules: objectivity and impersonal inquiry! Raving atheists are more bedfellows with raving religious fanatics than with true and impartial inquiry. 

Can we really dismiss this enormous, and beautiful, outpouring to a confused jumble of hormones, genetics, impulse to survive and reproduce? I read in National Georgraphic years ago an article -- completely serious and unselfconscious -- that explored the subject of human love purely from the point of view of being motivated by the impulse to survive. 

Just because we can't isolate God in our test tubes doesn't logically mean he doesn't exist. Maybe we just haven't found him yet. Look how much we HAVE discovered in just 50 or 100 years!

And what about human impulses towards pure love, joy and perfection. If our scientists are willing to posit the possibility of multiple universes how far off from that (unproven) hypothesis is higher consciousness? Or, an overarching Consciousness? I propose that the latter is far more rationally likely than the former when you are willing to take into account the entire spectrum of human conduct and experience, or even just the vastness and complexity of the physical cosmos itself. 

And yet, who is not stirred by the contemplation of pure love, pure joy, and perfection unimaginable? From whence comes our secret desire for perfection? From a state, perhaps, of knowing? Memory? Is there a distant past -- a golden age -- that we can no longer consciously recall or archaeologically have found evidence of (yet)? [What if the very nature of such an age precludes any evidence of its existence for the simple fact that human population, being enlightened, was relative small; climate, benign; people lived out of doors; had no need to farm or make cell phones; and so on?]

Should we just shrug our shoulders and say, "Well, it's a paradox, so either we just put it aside or we live with it without trying to understand "it."" Is life really so engaging that we don't care? Don't wonder? Wherein comes our dreams? Imagination? Speculation?

The mystery and the challenge of the God-word-concept can be ignored but for those with the courage to confront it head on, "there's gold in them thar hills!"

The 20th century will go down in history as a time when humanity decided there was no meaning to life, so why not "get mine while I can." The mantra of the first 50 years was something like: "Survival of the fittest!" So off some groups went to prove that WE are fittest: the master race; the greatest country on earth; the richest or most powerful business tycoon; the most viciously competitive company; the most popular movie star; most talented, and on and on! 

Science, moreover, during this era revealed just how insignificant the human race is in terms of the vastness of time and space, and in the what appeared to be the random, chaotic, and meaningless motions of all particles, which are supposedly the basis of all life forms. Clearly survival and procreation were the only discernible motivations and impulses worth noting. Right? Hmmmm....

But towards the second half of the 20th century and into the present, the complexity and issues of modern life began to crowd in around us, urging us to take responsibility for the impact of our lives on one another, on other life, and on the planet as a whole. At first we ignored the human footprint; then we denied that we were significant enough to make a difference. But after time and hardship, and, oh yes, the findings of science, we were (will?) to eventually come to the conclusion that we had to take responsibility for the world in which we lived. 

So maybe we were insignificant in the cosmic scheme of the universe but here and now we'd better get off our 'arse and clean up the mess we made.

A good beginning, but a mere child's step. Just more of the survival motif.

The significance of our insignificance is that our significance lies in what we are behind our physical forms and trivial personalities. At the center of our being lies our significance; our meaning; our happiness. We are allowed to call that "God" inasmuch as we share this significance, which is life itself, with all life and with every atom. It isn't ours exclusively but it is very personal to us. It is us. 

If self-aware, we experience our vital essence. The best and most consistent means of doing this is through the process, yea, the science, of meditation (and yoga). Relaxing the body; quieting the storm of restless thoughts and the personal, fleeting and all too often trivial emotions; resting in Being, in the Self. Like plastic that, as it approaches the temperature of absolute zero becomes a "super-conductive" material, we, approaching stillness, become super-conscious of our connection with all life, with Being.

In meditation, we can go from movement to stillness; from doing to being; from an insignificant wave in the great ocean of atoms and molecules to the essential consciousness and intelligence and feeling that animates and guides all things, like a drop of the great ocean of consciousness. Our definition of it is a matter of taste, but we are part of it and can experience it. Modern clinical science has proven, moreover, that it is very healthful and beneficial to do so! Our existence in time and space is as unique as our perception of Being is both personal and impersonal.

Yes, call that God. Why not? And yet, this God-thing is small; oh, but it is also large; it has form (yours, at least) and yet no form. It exists independent of our awareness of it and doesn't depend on our acknowledgement. And yet this Silence calls to us. If we express a sincere desire to "know," It will gently guide us into It's arms!

You are not the first to encounter this "God." But you are all you have. While that is true, it is also true that others have gone before you, to this "land beyond our dreams." Others have realized this power, this presence, this love in ways far greater, presumably, than yourself. Be humble, therefore. Listen more; speak less. Remember as a personality you are insignificant. Accept that in favor of the unconditional Infinity which is your true Self. Letting go of ego is, in fact, one of the preconditions for your awakening to your own, ironic, significance. 

Yes, there are those souls who come to tell us of their Beloved, who beguiles them endlessly in inner beauty, playfulness, creativity, joy and love without end. Honor these souls; seek them out; heed their counsel. The experience of this state can be actually humanly transmitted from such people to those who are "in tune" with them. Silence is a medium of exchange just as a cell phone signal, though invisible, is a medium of communication provided you have the right channel and equipment! 

This realization, called Self-realization is the pearl of great price. It is not purchased with bank notes; or beauty; or talent; or position. It is born in a manger though it be a king. It is born in a palace though it rules over no one.

God resides at the zero point of stillness, in the hidden recesses where time and space unite, at the center of all motion, beyond all definitions, all change. This zero point has no form but it has feeling. Consider this concept: consciousness cannot exist without feeling. (Try it.) It is bliss: immortal (ever-existing); self-aware (ever-conscious); ever-new (without end, self existent, self content) bliss. "Satchidanandam." One without a second. Omnipresent, yes.

Get over it: God is good; "good" is God with one more letter, for "good" and "bad" exist in this relative world while God is beyond and untouched by it, even while at the heart of it.

There is no god but God; there is no good but God; there is no thing but God. God alone, God here and now; God for ever and ever until the end of time. "Good God, man, let it (ego) go!" And, go for It with heart, mind and soul even as you realize it in every one else. Simple, yes. Easy, well, hmmmm, yes, and, no.

Christmas celebrates this "Christ" in Jesus and in you, and in all creation! A blessed and true Christ-mass celebration to you,

Swami Hrimananda