God and the World - Part 1

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

We concluded " The Cosmic Person in Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam " with the

following:

 

(P.147) " It is important to understand that the appearance of the world is not

an illusion but is an aspect of the reality itself. It is part of the perfection

of being that there is imperfection in it because reality embraces both the

whole, the total being, and all possibilities in the whole. In God, in the

Supreme, all reality is totally present but there are all sorts of particular

realities contained potentially in the divine being, and the world as we see it

is the manifestation of these particular realities, all of which are imperfect

in themselves. A finite world is an imperfect world. All things are in God in

their fullness and are perfect, but here they are manifested separately and are

therefore imperfect. (P.148) But this is part of the perfection of the reality,

to be able to manifest all these possibilities of being, all these infinite

possibilities as finite beings. So reality embraces both the whole in its total

unity and all the possibilities in the whole which are partial and incomplete.

The perfect man is the one in whom the divine consciousness is manifest, and who

embraces all these partial beings in their unity; he gathers up this whole

created world, all these imperfect forms, into the perfect unity of the divine

being, and is thus the mediator between the world and God.

 

From all of this it can be seen that there is not so much a uniform as a unitive

vision of reality, common to all the great traditions. Later we will see how

Christianity is related to this universal tradition of wisdom. "

 

A New Vision of Reality (Western Science, Eastern Mysticism and

Christian Faith), Pgs. 147-148

Bede Griffiths

Templegate Publishers - Springfield, Illinois

ISBN 0-87243-180-0

 

Here now is Part 1 of " God and The World " , where the author begins with a short

summary of the preceding chapters.

 

Enjoy!

 

violet

 

 

 

God and the World - Part 1

 

(149) The aim of this work is to trace the new vision of reality that is

emerging today and we are looking at Christianity in the context of modern

physics and psychology on the one hand and of Eastern mysticism on the other. It

is appropriate at this point to recall what has been established so far. We have

seen that in modern physics the universe is conceived as a field of energies

which is structured by an organizing power, and that this field of energies is

described as a " dynamic web of interdependent relationships. " Everything is

interdependent and forms one complex network in which the whole is present in

every part. The whole cannot be explained in terms of the parts, nor can the

parts be understood apart from the whole. What we are concerned with then is an

integrated unity which includes the whole physical universe and also the whole

psychological universe, for we know now that mind cannot be separated any longer

from matter. This is illustrated in the new understanding of the origin of the

universe in what is called the Big Bang. That great explosion of matter/energy

with which our universe began about fifteen thousand million years ago somehow

" contained " the whole of what later ensued. The English physicist David Bohm, as

we have seen, speaks of the implicate order. (1) He holds that what we perceive

is the explication, or unfolding, of that which was originally implicated. What

has happened over thousands of millions of years has been a gradual explication

first of all of the material universe, then of life and then of consciousness.

(P.150) In some way our consciousness was already included, implicated, in that

great original explosion of matter.

 

Contemporary psychology has taken this up and is exploring the complexity of

human consciousness. It is realised that the rational consciousness by which we

observe the universe and develop our physics is itself only one stage in the

evolution of consciousness. We now know that we can go below our present

rational consciousness to various levels of preconscious life and this can be

done quite scientifically in such a way that various levels of the unconscious,

or, better, the subconscious, can be accessed. It is possible, for instance, to

go back in consciousness to the primordial undifferentiated state before mental

consciousness as such developed. It is also possible, as we know particularly

from Eastern mystical experience, to go beyond the present level of

consciousness to superconsciousness. Western psychology has now taken this up.

Ken Wilber speaks of the spectrum of consciousness (2), as he calls it, from the

primeval consciousness where there is simple identification with the body, to

the superconscious supreme state where there is attainment of total being in

total consciousness. That is the view which is emerging in the science of today.

 

In chapter three we looked at Eastern mysticism and saw that in the fifth and

sixth centuries before Christ there was a vast expansion in human consciousness.

At that point, in the Upanishads and in the Buddha, the human mind passed beyond

the limits of both sense-consciousness and rational consciousness, to experience

the absolute Reality. This demanded a transcending of both the mind and the

senses to experience the total oneness beyond. We saw also how in the Upanishads

this consciousness was explored. The name 'brahman' was given to the absolute

Reality which was experienced behind the phenomena of the world. Behind the

phenomena of earth, plant, animal and human being, there is the universal total

reality, the 'brahman'. (P.151) And then the great discovery was made that

'brahman', the absolute Reality behind all phenomena, is identical with the

'atman' which is the absolute Reality within each person's consciousness.

 

The next stage was that 'brahman' and 'atman' came to be conceived as 'purusha',

the cosmic Person. What distinguishes the person is self-consciousness.

'Brahman' and 'atman' are pure consciousness. Both are expressed in the term

'saccidananda', where 'sat' is being, reality 'chit' is consciousness and

'ananda' is bliss. 'Saccidananda' is the experience of absolute Reality in pure

consciousness and perfect bliss. That is what the Upanishads gradually reveal as

the ultimate Reality. But in the later Upanishads, particularly in the

Svetasvatara Upanishad and then in the Bhagavad Gita, this 'saccidananda',

absolute Reality, is conceived in terms of a Person, Vishnu and Krishna in the

Bhagavad Gita, Shiva in the Svetasvatara Upanishad. A person is a self-conscious

being and the understanding is that ultimate Reality is self-conscious; it is

capable not only of knowledge but also of love. Krishna says, " Give yourself to

me, offer yourself to me, because you are dear to me. " The idea is that there is

love in the ultimate Reality.

 

(1) David Bohm, Wholeness and the Implicate Order (Routledge and Kegan Paul,

1980).

(2) Ken Wilber, The Spectrum of Consciousness (Theosophical Publishing House,

1977)

 

A New Vision of Reality (Western Science, Eastern Mysticism and

Christian Faith), Pg. 146 - 151

Bede Griffiths

Templegate Publishers - Springfield, Illinois

ISBN 0-87243-180-0