Saturday, January 30, 2016

Can God Be Proved? A New Dispensation

I believe that in the Shankhya scriptures of India it is said that "God cannot be proved." (Ishwar ashiddha"). People argue about this all the time.

Many simply believe in God and call it good. This is, in part, because our rational and scientifically committed culture does not "believe in" intuition, except for the inexplicable but not easily replicated phenomenon known as the "hunch." This is all too frequently dismissed as just another of those things about women that men can't rationally account for. Thus "believers" are forced to build a firewall between belief and proof; between spirit and nature; between divine and the human experience.

Standing with awe before nature, human life, drama, history and yes, even science, we touch upon the feeling of something greater than ourselves; something that underlies all things. Albert Einstein's life long pursuit of a unified theory of everything echoes this intuitive feeling often triggered by the experience of awe. This is one example (of many) of intuition. We just KNOW that IT is there, here, and everywhere. It can be felt, touched but not seen or possessed. But, not proved!

Paramhansa Yogananda describes in Chapter 14 (An Experience of Cosmic Consciousness) of his life story, "Autobiography of a Yogi," a doorway into this supra-sensory realm of intuition. It is, unsurprisingly, through meditation that this experience can be replicated by anyone willing to pay the price of admission: sincere and sustained effort using specific methods of meditation.

Some many months after having this mind-blowing experience of infinity, Yogananda (PY) took a problem to his guru (who had bestowed upon him that experience). "I want to know, sir -- when shall I find God?" Swami Sri Yuktewar, perhaps smiling, responded, "You have found Him." "O no, sir, I don't think so!"After a brief exchange, in which an incredulous Sri Yukteswar was certain his disciple did not expect to find a man on a throne, he explained:

"Ever-new Joy is God. He is inexhaustible; as you continue your meditations during the years, He will beguile you with an infinite ingenuity." Later, he continues, "After the mind has been cleared by Kriya Yoga of sensory obstacles, meditation furnishes a two-fold proof of God. Ever-new joy is evidence of His existence, convincing to our very atoms. Also, in meditation one finds His instant guidance, His adequate response to every difficulty."  (Autobiography of a Yogi, 1946 edition)

PY effectively introduced, as he put it, a "new dispensation." Truth is one and eternal but its manifold expressions change according to the needs of receptive souls. So the new part is to offer truthseekers to put aside mere belief and rancorous theological debates in return for the direct perception of God in meditation. It is in the universal and nonsectarian experiences of inner peace, joy, and unconditional love (to name three of eight aspects) that God can be experienced.

As a measurable bonus, pleasing to scientists, testing has proven innumerable physical and mental benefits to meditation. These are the "added unto you" of Jesus' famous counsel to "Seek the kingdom of heaven (which is within you) first, and all these things (health, intelligence, creativity, happiness) will be added unto you."

Sticking a bit with Jesus Christ, since "sufficient unto the day" are the needs thereof, the meditator need not focus unduly with the cosmic consciousness experience described by PY and the goal of the soul's journey toward Self-realization. For the "infinite (and beguiling) ingenuity of God is sufficient unto the daily meditation practice to push us along our journey to that end which, were it to be bestowed prematurely, would "fry our brains!" as intimated elsewhere in PY's autobiography.

Thus is released for millions the tension between the rational mind and the intuitive soul. This is the new dispensation and the glad tidings, the good news that PY has brought to the world. Satisfaction, convincing to our very atoms and to our thirsty hearts, and lasting, bestowed without condition of belief or affiliation, can heal the wounds of divisive sectarianism and the war between science and religion, atheists and believers.

Blessings to you,

Swami Hrimananda