GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN BY WILLIAM MITCHELL VOLUME 6 GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN For my Dad, who believes that he believes; and for my family, wherever they may be found G.
GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN BY WILLIAM MITCHELL VOLUME GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN For my Dad, who believes that he believes; and for my family, wherever they may be found GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN I not just want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth about peace – Helen Keller † I not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order that I may understand, for this I feel sure, that if I did not believe, I would not understand – St Anselm † May the inhabitants of earth become one in their hearts, Unite their plans and designs with the dwellers in heaven! – Rumi in Teachings of Rumi † How can we live in harmony? First we need to know we are all madly in love with the same God – St Thomas Aquinas † I have come into this world to see this: the sword drop from men’s hands even at the height of their arc of anger because we have finally realized there is just one flesh to wound – Hafiz in Love Poems from God GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN GOD, 19: ON PANENTHEISM IN THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY, AND THE FUTURE _ _ _ This chapter consists of my Masters’ thesis It was written in the autumn of 2009, and thus was written after the majority of these volumes, excepting volumes and 7, the two being written at roughly the same time, and thus you may perceive similarities For the most part, however, I have striven to make sure that they contain different material This next chapter, 20, will be all of the information and evidence that I could not include in this thesis due to my word restriction I have retained its title, though its original title was “Centering Our Worldview,” and I have therefore used that for chapter 20 GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN See Sproul, p117, 135, 137, 157, 184, 192-5, 200, 207-8, 217, 237-42, 239 (spiral gate – it takes us to the top if we can hang on), 331, 336, 351-2, 353 Creation myths are trying to explain something temporally that is non-temporal, and the best ones already know this ***I tried for years to create something that was based on a comparative method and on the similar or common themes and ideas and notions and such that run throughout the world’s religions What I discovered is that it can’t be done The answer, I discovered, through much pain and effort, was not in what was similar between them, but it was rather in what was not there, that which seemed to be conveniently missing from all of them That’s what this book is, that which will unite the religions if we are willing to give a little as well as to see and hear with the eyes of Spirit and the love of God and the effort of man It is that which has not yet been expressed, though it could be said to be expressed everywhere if we are willing to expand our understanding and meaning Then, if we such, we will see that the coincidences are just too many for this to be an accident Then we will have exactly what I have and continue to give you throughout these volumes, with more or less success Even atheism, for most atheists are reacting to theism, not truth The reason for it was for this very moment in time we are now in, for there was no other way of both creating traditional religion as well as helping us overcome it when the time came to so, this time where we are now supposed to accept the truth of God, the universe, and man Thus it could be said that religion is meant to overcome itself This was always intended, and it is something we must now GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN Call this a conspiracy if you like, I simply call it help and love from the ancients, indeed, from God himself Explain how “neti neti” is a universal device applying to the metaphysic and theology of every major religion we’ve had, that everything is a turn off from the truth Everything is a sort of, “Yes, but…” Let’s begin with, this is not theism As I was experiencing this book I felt as if I was backing down into the core of understanding concepts, but not in the sense that they were intended by the original authors of them As we have seen throughout these volumes, I believe that things were set up to be misinterpreted; so let’s misinterpret them the way we’re supposed to This book and what I am professing and teaching to you is not a heresy, it is heresy itself It’s not the universe that is literally, or rather more correctly meaning directly, within you Don’t confuse this with syncretism In fact, it almost seems as if this could be said to be the negation, or perhaps the inverse, of syncretism We shouldn’t have to explain ourselves or our beliefs to others on the larger scale Our religious realities should be taken as given and as one Our personal beliefs and what we take from our own tradition is another matter, as it has always been, but my reality should not separate me from your reality, nor your reality from another’s GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN Throughout these many pages I have tried to make it clear how what I present is different from the Church Let’s now see how it is different from from other religions, historic and contemporary Just as the full and actual universe isn’t literally inside of us, so are we not literally at the center of the outer universe This is also the case with the historical heresies I am between orthodoxy and heresy, and yet beyond both; or rather it may be that orthodoxy goes too far and heresy not far enough I am not saying that the historical religions are now or were wrong for their time, rather I am saying that it is time to transcend them for a truth more encompassing, of love, understanding, and peace III am not judging them, I can simply not affirm them any longer as they have been given to us; but that doesn’t mean they will be discarded absolutely I am neither affirming nor negating the world religions; rather I am looking at them in a wholly new way, with new eyes, if you will Jesus said, "If your leaders say to you, 'Look, the (Father's) kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you Rather, the (Father's) kingdom is within you, and it is outside you (Gospel of Thomas, verse 3) Alas, if only we had really heard the truth when it was told to us … and every time since GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN It is thus here that we are not looking for comparisons, but rather in the peculier differences between the religions and what I have presented Zoroastrianism’s two gods misunderstood J and Luc, and it is also a misunderstanding of God himself and a particular trend of Spirit Zoroastrianism thus believes there to be an evil at bay in the world, an evil aspect of beingness There has thus been a turn, that of comparaitve for similarities towards their differences It’s as if each of the old traditions that had something of the original revelation left were given an inch and took a mile, by which I mean to say that they had but a piece of it and filled in the rest the best they could, though it left them with a misunderstanding of the truth For example, the Hindu metaphysic and Vishnu’s dream, along with maya, explains this quite well They had a piece and made it the whole, and thus misunderstanding crept in This is a large part of what we are trying to overcome today Monotheism is thus a term that has been stretched by me, and I have thus tried to steer clear of it Islam doesn’t believe Christ to be God but rather a prophet I hold him to be not God but also that he is our King Thus you can easily see what I am getting at here, and I thus leave this for others to fill out for us GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN In Mormonism it is held that the God, the God of all existence, was actually a normal man who once walked on Earth This is clearly a misunderstanding of Luc and J In addition to those differences we have seen throughout thiese pages, allow me now to thus point out a few more of note This is why I have said form and essence, for the doctrine and dogma in the middle of the affirmations and negations incite all types of violence and harmful thoughts This very resolution or turn of things is the reason I am no longer allied with Traditionalism This is the overcoming of the traditions Further, in order to this one has to overcome great fear, within and without This is also the moving of our collective mountains And it indeed needs the truth of God to such I wish I could set down all the middle-ways this is, but I leave the majority of that for others In between enchantment and power Science can be the comforter, but first it needs a new vision GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN The perfection must be perfected, that is, there are three layers here: individuals must be perfected, the religions must be, and the binding of the religions will perfect them How we avoid the “clash of civilizations?” Give us that very thing Globalization is nothing to fear, so long as we it right This, to begin this discussion, is not another attempt at manifest destiny, but is the simple course of things Paradoxically, it is our very differences that will help bring us together My use of the ideas of maya and animism I have revealed much of this chapter in volume Thus you may think it crude or even mean of me not to continue to systematize and wholly complete this endeavor However, firstly, such a task is beyond the possibility of one ordinary person Second, such further requires the elapsing of time and place And third, it would have been to leave you all with nothing to do, nothing left to discover for yourselves I will, however, in the next and final volume have some important things to say regarding these matters One of the most important reasons we must overcome Traditionalism is because it is fundamentalist in its belief and practice The main problem with fundamentalism is that behind all its glib and glamour is fear and hatred of all that is not itself; the shinier the outside the dirtier the inside In truth it is the fundamentalisms that are the heresies GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN In my final personal consideration of whether or not to the world’s work for it, meaning the reformation of the religions, I have come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be right to what would be to step on the toes of the world’s other religions, even though I feel myself to be engaged with all of them Thus it’s up to all of you/us to all that you/we should And it should be done in a way that it shouldn’t be perceived as criticism, but rather as critique pointing towards fulfillment, the latter being something that we will only reach together Not Deism nor Animism My understanding of the idea of myth as used by Luc and J is between Campbell’s and the modern use of a lie Maya – the world is not an illusion, but rather our perception of it us Throughout these volumes I have said little about ritual, for good reason Ritual qua ritual is about reminding one of God’s truth and reality – I mean this differently than “remembering” I have spoken of throughout Thus in truth ritual finds little purpose apart from rehabilitating those who have forgotten, and therefore have erred in some way or form Once one has attained an understanding of God and Reality, to the point such is possible, then ritual serves little purpose, even bringing one down where one should be lifted up, so to speak One a living praxis is attained, then dead ritual would only hinder one’s progress, even taking away one’s realization and enlightenment However, should one for some reason forget about or lose their living praxis, then ritual can come back in to remind one, but not, in the main, otherwise Ritual is made for man, not man GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN for ritual Once transcendence is had, further experiences of transcendence can be counterproductive Victor Turner called it the experience of the liminal; but once the liminal is realized, further seeking of the liminal will actually remove one from it But to have attained a living relationship with God and Spirit, what further purpose is there to seek it? Indeed, to so would be to risk falling into fundamentalism, something like what is called going through the motions Further, as I said at the outset of this venture, I am not an artist, and such is exactly what the rest of this same venture requires of us This will be covered to great extent in the next volume No one can own truth Nor will I leave you steeped in it, meaning that we have to get back to living So just what is the difference? How are religions different from one another and why would one choose one over another? In part the difference is form and essence, which we’ll get into more in the next volume Everything is a turn off or away from the truth In one sense we can say that each established way is in part right And in one way we can say they are each part wrong Either way leads us to what has been written in these pages, and the latter is exactly what is supposed to be Postmodernism and scientism say that there is no Truth But we cannot allow Truth to be other than one, which is to say, we cannot again allow it to fracture, which is what happens when we deny the overriding Truth and Oneness What the religions will then be is the Truth, but each looking at it through a particular GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN lens All will be one, but each each from a certain perspective Any other way is to court disaster, within and without; either pluralist myopia and shambles, prejudice and incompleteness This is why it is said , “Truth is one, but sages speak of it as many.” This is, further, how we remake our religions, that is, through the revelation and reception of essence and form, which each religion is built upon This is also the overcoming the false notion of mere tolerance, in favor of each having a purpose, just as each person has a purpose within their religion Thus we each and all also overcome apathy and indifference Col 1:17, Eph 1:10, 1Cor 15:28 In one sense we can come back down the ladder through realizing that all of this is not a founded or recognized heresy This is part of the true “neti neti,” or “not this, not this.” The other way back down is to the same with the doctrines of established or traditional religion Here are a few of the larger or more striking examples: As we have seen the distinctions throughout, We saw the Greek example above, so just recall that they universalized the elements; rather than seeing them as parts of a whole they saw each as supreme Animism is because God is in everything, but not conscious in everything Deism is because while he may not be in the world, he is still in each of us Arianism Vaishnavism because God is not asleep and the world is only metaphorically a dream And Maya in that the universe is still real, even if there is something else Mormon cosmology because neither Luc nor J were ever raised to be universally God GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN Catharism Catholicism for many reasons, but mainly because of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ Euhemerism in that Christ was a man raised to a higher position, but not as euhemerism suggests The pagan examples are well known, especially the Egyptian, and for many reasons, some of which we have seen Islam in the way of the Spirit and in that Christ wasn’t just a prophet, but is our king, though not God Zoroastrianism Even the idea of monotheism, for Spirit If all the roads end up in dead ends you'll be shown the secret paths no one will comprehend (Rumi) In a very real sense this is the personal movement or transcendence of religion If you can see this, all these dead ends and the truth at the center, then one has succeeded This is the path where there was no path This doesn’t, however, mean this is a new teaching, indeed, we have seen it to be the most ancient and universal What we are thus looking at is the eye of the storm GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN In common terms I have made myself a pariah And if you confirm what you have read in these pages then so have you But I believe what I have written to be the truth And all that matters is the way you react to this truth Well, we could go on for some time These ideas are either or both outmoded or in some cases simply wrong We have and will further see that what the truths all have in common is love and knowledge, the two commandments of Christ But the established doctrines and heresies both are a turn off or away from the truth We must get over our cosmic particularities in order to realize and accept the truth of God, the universe, and man, as I have been outlining With such we will always be able to discern the truth in something, because we will know the truth itself, even if it is not always in our direct consciousness Nor is this an undoing of Christianity, rather Christians may think of it as not only true Christianity, but Christianity on a higher level, and the same goes with all religions In a very real sense this is the personal movement or transcendence of religion If you can see this, all these dead ends and the truth at the center, then one has succeeded In a very real sense, this is the way that we are gathered and set free While this middle is one that is all yet is not touched by the current religions, and we can tell those that participate and in what way from those who not We get closer to the truth all the while, but we never touch it It is given to the artists – among others – to complete this vision, or more appropriately these visions, for GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN us It is Spirit and gnosis that allows this intuition, and it is only the common people who have use of this to such a capacity, that is, overflowing from within them Thus God provides comfort for all, each according to need, in a way Spirit inspires those who would be artists, and it is these who must be given the opportunity to be artists, or to otherwise express themselves and spend their lives Those who know the truth are not generally artists or have no desire other than a personal life as such While those who don’t know the truth – at least at first – are artsists And we know them by their fruits, love and wisdom, whether they are helping people or trying to harm them Spirit speaks to those who know, but she speaks through those who don’t, and thus they must have an outlet for this energy and truth going through them And those who know the truth are also lifted up because they have to see the part, for no artist can produce the whole in a single work of art We will know them by their fruit, not just the good and evil, but those who know and those who don’t That is to say, by the life they live we will know who loves and who doesn’t We are overcoming religion in a way that has always been intended, and it is intended for right now This is the time for the truth as I have tried to outline it and will continue to so in the next volume This was a total coincidence and not the way I discovered it, but it does work A little pragmatism, I guess, though it presupposes one knows the truth as I have tried to outline it in these volumes GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN God is to be found in the stillness, not in the raging storm Remember the myth? One has to stop Proteus from spinning or changing before one can get help from him This sideways-ness is part of the metis I spoke of in the first volume This is, as we will see, part of the lower register of religion, and not part of Religion itself In one pragmatic usage these are the rungs of the laddr on the way up and down for those who will journey The truth about God lies beyond all definition, but such does not mean that our Religion must In fact, as I have shown, help towards a definition is given to us by what has not been said by the historical religions and heresies I apologize to not keeping my metaphors straight This ladder is similar to the cycling that we say in volume 4, spending a little bit of time on each rung And we might again compare it to Jacob’s Ladder, with the angels, i.e those who can, moving both up and down it Our differences must lead to union, though not in this manner This is not the true way, not by that which has traditionally named This is the last refuge of comparative religion, to overcome itself It undoes itself precisely because it affirms its purpose “Poets seeking in their heart with wisdom found the bond of existence in nonexistence” (Rig Veda) GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN This ladder is, as a Tibetan prayer puts it, to “transform illusion into luminosity,” to make even the false work in our favor, and the immaterial seem material “Oh my Queen, Queen of the Universe, the Queen who encompasses the universe, may he the King enjoy long days at your holy lap” (Sumerian text) That this underlying reality is the case in all religions demands that we recognize it and respond to it We cannot sit by while countless suffer and die because of the ignorance of it This is the call to reform, which will be further discussed and answered in the next volume No matter how one looks at it, reality never changes, and thus it is that it is upon reality that we must found our religions We cannot ever seek to unify them through doctrine or dogma, or even on individuals, for they are each and all relevant and ever changing, even when they stay the same Religion, which is from the root religio and means that which binds together, can only be based on God, that which holds all things together And God begins with the Ground of Being and ends with his love for us, and thus us for each other because he is in us God is the Ground of Being within and without This much must be undiluted throughout whatever else we make of it Just because the Buddha said something doesn’t make it true Even he told us that much Though I will appropriately leave it for other religions and cultures to restore and resolve their own religions, allow me in this chapter to account for some of what GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN they must account for, apart from what has already been said We might call this chapter a compilation of the mystical, read metaphysical, import of the religions as I have come across it in my own reading "All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind This Mind is the matrix of all matter" (Max Planck) “I want to know God’s thoughts The rest are details” (Einstein) The illusion of material reality is not that it is false, but rather that it is all that there is Polish, 107 Dammapada iii.38 "If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way” (Emile Zola) ... Worldview,” and I have therefore used that for chapter 20 GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN PANENTHEISM IN RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY, AND THE FUTURE GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN GOD, THE UNIVERSE, ... GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN BY WILLIAM MITCHELL VOLUME GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN For my Dad, who believes that he believes; and for my family, wherever they may... McLaren GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND MAN CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION – WHAT CHAPTER TWO: PANENTHEISM IN THE CHAPTER THREE: PANENTHEISM CHAPTER