When Descartes wrote the above, he effectively tossed established textbook theology out the window, dismissed the mysticism of the Renaissance with a shrug, and thrust upon an unsuspecting audience a rational approach to knowledge. Had he published the material prior to his death, we may have been privy to a more expanded view on proof of the existence of man and God; as it was, the transpersonal philosophy responsible for the phrase "I think, therefore I am," was swallowed whole by the Age of Reason, trampled under foot by the Period of Enlightenment and rendered obsolete by Wesley’s born-again movement.
Throughout history God has both assumed and shed the attributes reflective of man’s inner and outer state. He is at once personal and incomprehensible, vengeful and forgiving, conscious and unconscious. Capable of bestowing grace upon the most unrepentant sinner, He is equally adept at hurling lightening bolts at the unsuspecting pedestrian. To each individual seeking to define a reality, God is not unlike a piece of clay that we mold according to our perception and artistic ability. That we are poor artists is not evident in our failure to reach a mutually agreeable consensus; rather it is the uniqueness of our art that makes it appear strange to the onlooker while yet satisfying the creative portion of the inner self.
In finding God an indelible portion of who I am, He contributes to my concept of transpersonal identity. While I cannot define who He is, I can define who He is not. In doing so I lay the foundation for the beliefs that construct my reality.
THE PARTIAL REJECTION OF DIVINE OMNIPRESENCE, FALL OF MAN, EVIL AND KARMA AS PROBABLE CAUSE FOR MY TRANSIENT REALITY AND CURRENT OCCUPATION OF NON-EXISTENT SPACEby
Judy Jones
The idea that God is perfect is simply that: an idea. Perfection implies a completed state, a finished product. To imply that God is perfect suggests that He no longer creates or expands and severely limits the concept of our co-creating with Him. While postulating that we exist as "Children of God" we limit any sense of oneness with Him by demanding that we meet a prerequisite that is as inaccessible as it is unobtainable.
The idea that man is imperfect and engaged in a lifetime of struggle to become one with God has, as it’s roots, the Fall of Man. The very term "fall" implies both an immediate parting of the ways as well as the symbolic residual of going down in lieu of up. Where man suddenly became frail, God became Almighty. If man was finite, God was infinite. Be externalizing God and placing Him on a plane that we deemed ourselves too unworthy to transgress, we accepted the inevitable by-products of guilt and sin and the alienation which both promised to bring. The result was to credit God with all that is good while blaming man for all that is evil.
In historic as well as twentieth century theory, evil has remained a constant. While adorned in varying shades of dress, it remains something to be overcome, mastered, or , at the very least, something to be recognized in order to be avoided. While this concept reinforces our separateness from God, it also presupposes that the "self-centered spirit of rebellion" that makes man "man" is bad. Identifying the origin of our rebellion is not easy. When comparing ourselves to Nature-- one of our most informative and simplistic teachers-- it becomes downright confusing.
Consider a bull elephant in the wild. Engaged in battle to defend its territory, the elephant has its windpipe pierced by its opponents tusks. Amidst bellows of pain, the injured elephant eventually succumbs to death. The surviving bull succeeds him, taking his place as leader of the herd. The remaining elephants, while accepting the new bull, nonetheless mourn the loss of the former bull. The mate of the deceased bull refuses to feed her calf and another mother in the herd quickly assumes maternal duties in order to ensure the calf’s survival.
While this scenario might cause sadness and regret in the human observer it would not provoke cries of "murder." But translating the same events to human conditions would. Human beings killed by acts of aggression provoke feelings of anger, sorrow and hatred which are often tempered with demands for justice. Murder is considered an evil act, a by-product of man. If not considered a sin against God, it reflects the fact that God "acts in mysterious ways," no matter how much these ways hurt or disable us. It presupposes that death by violence is not a natural act nor a decision of God while serving to reinforce our feelings of fear, isolation and shame.
This philosophy extends itself to the set of beliefs that structure our concept of karma. What we reap we sow. Acts which we are responsible for which result in harm to others will eventually result in someone harming us. This concept requires that we differentiate between good and bad based on a set of erroneous beliefs similar to those cited above.
An example of someone establishing "good" karma is cited in "Covenant, Vol. 1, No. 6" and concerns a magician who "does magic for Christ." The magician performs his feats of magic for ill children and ends his performance with a spiritual message that is uplifting for his audience. The author of this article muses over the magicians choice of work in this lifetime, i.e., the magician’s special finger dexterity has been put to good use as a magician who brings happiness to children. The magician could have chosen something worse, like being a pickpocket. Had he chosen to be a pickpocket, he would have incurred bad karma. This, of course, presupposes that pickpockets are "bad." Gone from possible consideration is the victim who benefits from the pickpocket by being forced to walk in lieu of taking a taxi and who undergoes an enlightening experience because of it.
Our ability to mold reality into a confining set of beliefs can narrow our perspective and limit our growth. As evidenced in "From Alcoholic to Dreamer," breaking through previously held convictions can enlighten us to new "realities" that promote healing. In this dream, a set of beliefs that saw drunks as unworthy, sneaky and deserving of punishment shattered with the dreamers realization that the drunk in question was wanted, welcome and invited.
There are as many reasons for our drunks as our pickpockets, our priests as well as our protectors, our atheists as well as our Christians. The belief that reincarnation is a progressive movement upwards, bringing us closer to God, might be better served by recognizing that we try on a variety of roles to enrich ourselves through the lives of others. Rejecting some roles as unworthy while yet approving of others regulates Christ’s message of " as ye do so unto others ye do so unto me," to one of grudging acceptance or forced charity.
By recognizing that I formulate my own beliefs and that these beliefs influence my behavior, I thus create my own reality. While believing that matter is mind manifested materially, the recognition that my beliefs are subject to change makes my reality transient. It is thus unstable, unpredictable and unreliable. Chaos is non-existent; instead a venerable pool of information exists from which I can randomly draw or purposely choose. That drawn or chosen does not have a random basis but conforms to the beliefs imposed upon it by its creator: me.
To construct my reality I rely on that which I observe or perceive in my external environment and try to correlate it with the ideas or beliefs which I hold in my mind.
An external example. . . . .
A toddler who loses his balance and falls does not spend the next three days in a meditative state, trying to determine what caused him to fall, how falling can be prevented in the future and correlating the process of falling to fears of failure, rejection and bodily injury. Instead he simply gets up. He toddles on.
An internal belief. . . .
In quantum mechanics, energy consolidates to form matter as the result of projected consciousness. The form matter takes is dependent upon the pool of information or material from which the image is drawn. The completed product is directly proportional to the belief which created the image.
Applying quantum mechanics to the toddler, we find the toddler projecting the belief of walking through anticipation of the event. He swings his legs and through the process of locomotion causes the event to occur. Falling, a non-anticipated event, is rejected by replacing the fall immediately with (the) walk, while subtle messages absorbed through the mechanics of falling are registered in both the conscious and unconscious mind. The baby may realize that leaning too far forward while walking is precarious; he may attempt to adjust his speed or sideways wobble accordingly. He also may realize that going through a table is not conducive to reaching the opposite end of the room.
While the "reality" of the baby’s fall appears to be physiological in origin, formulating this reality enables me to draw from an endless pool of probabilities.
Perhaps the act of falling is the projected result of the unconscious or "soul-self," that all-knowing essence that gently guides and steers us in the process of our trial and error life. In an effort to protect the body, the soul-self knocks the baby gently down when it perceives that speed has become a threat to its safety and a more dangerous fall will ensue if the body is not immediately stopped; a sudden drop onto its rump may be protecting the baby from what would have been a lop-sided fall onto its head.
But whether physiological or not, in constructing my "reality" of the event, I recognize that this inner soul-self can eventually be successfully blockaded, hidden behind walls that suggest that falling is the result of incoordination, stupidity and clumsiness. Embarrassment can replace the excitement , confidence and growth of self-esteem associated with the learning-to-walk process by focusing solely on the fall. Knocking down this barrier and getting back to our internal soul-self requires replacing the material we used to construct the wall---in this case, beliefs of incoordination, stupidity and clumsiness--- with material more conducive to self-realization and growth.
It is this process of knocking down barriers and getting to the unpolluted essence of my soul-self that most clearly defines my identity. It enables me to bare witness to the inherent birthright of stability, self-acceptance and freedom that saw falling simply as a process and not as a reason to invest in a pair of corrective shoes. It brings home Christ’s words "unless ye become like children ye will no ways enter in."
Yet creating barriers that obstruct my growth are a large portion of my life. I consistently construct, destroy and re-construct barriers based on the beliefs that I choose, or don’t choose, to invest in at any given time. While frustration is inherent in what often appears to be a never ending struggle for permanent peace, I am reminded of Cayce’s words "It is not all of life to live nor all of death to die." That we shouldn’t take life too seriously is further brought home in Cayce’s reminder that "even Christ laughed on the way to the cross." That I am utilizing a large portion of humor in my role within this Divine Comedy became self-evident when I viewed my first homicide victim as a police officer in Baltimore City. The homicide had been particularly brutal, even by Baltimore City standards. What enabled me to view the body with a detached frame of mind resided in my firm belief that each soul chooses it’s own mode of exit from this world and that that particular soul had moved on. Indeed, it certainly had. And left a mess in its place. "What an overly dramatic exit," I caught myself thinking.
Throughout the years I would discover that some of the most potent forms of humor surface at times of crisis and can supplant the very crisis that brought rise to the humor. Still, it doesn’t do to say such things as "wasn’t that shooting the other day hysterical? Gosh, I really enjoyed that." It does, however, allow us to look at a situation from a different perspective, enabling us to recognize how often we apply a set of confining beliefs to any given situation. These beliefs in turn give rise to barriers that we don’t even realize; they contribute to stagnation, frustration and the salaries of psychiatrists
While humor contributes to my identity, it is the multiplicity of my beliefs that contributes to the "trans" in my "personal" and establishes my "me." To determine what God is I have had to determine what He is not while realizing that the beliefs that I dismiss today may be laying the foundation of my tomorrow. While the search for God is mine, I find comfort in the caveman who did not know a God and did not seek one. My existence is not dependent upon finding Him nor is it threatened if I do not try. I exist, both the sparrow and the eagle, His breath but the wind on my flight home.