“Your Essence is not human. It enters into a human experience, but it is not itself human. We are of an essence. You are of an essence. All of Creation is of an essence.”
“There is no deity but the One. And that One is not fundamentally or ultimately in human form.”
“Small is a human concept. There is nothing small, or large, in God, in Creation. It is all One.”
“Remember too that in Creation is ultimate and absolute creative expression.”
It’s great that you’ve started this site. I’ll be checking it regularly…
However, I have trouble with Our Friends’ seemingly impersonal conception of God, presenting it as ultimate.
Identity depends upon form (gross material, subtle material, or spiritual), so if God is ultimately or originally formless, then God also has no real identity. Then there would be no distinction between God and the living enties and inert matter, giving rise to the idea that everyone is God.
Then it would follow that God indulges in material sense gratification, gets bewildered and suffers. It would mean that maya or illusion can overcome God, or in other words that illusion is supreme, rather than God. Therefore it is called mayavadi philosophy, preaching the supremacy of illusion.
In Bhagagad-gita, as well as throughout the Vedic literatures, there are several direct refutations to the mayavadi theory:
BG 4.6: Although I am unborn and My transcendental body never deteriorates, and although I am the Lord of all living entities, I still appear in every millennium in My original transcendental form.
BG 7.24: Unintelligent men, who do not know Me perfectly, think that I, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, was impersonal before and have now assumed this personality. Due to their small knowledge, they do not know My higher nature, which is imperishable and supreme.
BG 9.11: Fools deride Me when I descend in the human form. They do not know My transcendental nature as the Supreme Lord of all that be.
BG 9.22: But those who always worship Me with exclusive devotion, meditating on My transcendental form — to them I carry what they lack, and I preserve what they have.
BG 11.51: When Arjuna thus saw Kṛṣṇa in His original form, he said: O Janārdana, seeing this humanlike form, so very beautiful, I am now composed in mind, and I am restored to my original nature.
BG 12.2: The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: Those who fix their minds on My personal form and are always engaged in worshiping Me with great and transcendental faith are considered by Me to be most perfect.
BG 14.27: And I am the basis of the impersonal Brahman, which is immortal, imperishable and eternal and is the constitutional position of ultimate happiness.
http://vedabase.net
Hi Paul, As ever, you offer a unique perspective, both personally and spiritually. I appreciate you for this. Here is Our Friends response. I hope it will be short…
Our Friends: We have discussed this with you before, sweet man. We are happy to do so again. We would say that the experience of impersonal vs personal, whether to G-d or to another human, relates to, and depends more upon, felt energetic connection than upon form. You can feel more deeply connected, in true presence, with one a thousand miles away than you do with the one sitting in front of you. There is no body to the one far away, yet you “know” that one in every fiber of your being.
There is nothing impersonal about G-D/G-ddess/Creation — whatever name fits best for you. Nothing. There cannot be, because the very breath that enlivens you is dependent upon the Presence of the Creator, the very life in your cells is that same life. You cannot be separate. Yet neither your essence, nor the Creator’s, can be contained within form of any kind…”it” is the form and the formless…”it” is that which came before, lives through, and will always be, after form, as “it” is before, during, after, and outside of time. In short, what is called G-d or G-ddess, as we call Creation, is beyond any conception human minds can create.
So you create stories to attempt to grasp the truth through poetry, through the sparking of your most treasured and precious asset, your imaginations. The stories are not so important as the experience of mystery and awe and trust they inspire. The degree to which you allow yourselves to be trapped by your stories is the degree to which you lose track of the mystery and awe — the actual experience you are capable of touching, each in your own innermost being. You will not “know” (as with your mind and your words…G-d is far beyond these) but you can touch with your felt sense, because you carry the Creator’s spark within you like tinder. At their best, your stories are a match to that tinder.
Your quotes, we see, sweet man, actually agree with us. A lot depends on how you read them. Read them again. And beware your intellect, which too often separates humans from the heart…a far more open door to G-d. If you are in struggle, you are missing the mark. If you are inspired with love or mystery or joy or peace or service, you are there. Our Friends