"That the existence of the one God was widely known by some classes of men at least among the nations of antiquity there can be little doubt. Among the Chinese, according to the most eminent authority, Dr. Legge, the word Ti represented the same idea as we express by the word God; and its assumption as a title by the earliest dynasty of the Emperors of China would be quite in accordance with the ancient belief that the monarch ruled as the divine representative. When the disciples of Manu approached that sage to beg for instruction in the wisdom which afterwards formed the foundation of Indian law, they addressed him as follows: "For thou, O lord, alone knowest the purport (or rites) and the knowledge taught in the whole ordinance of the Self-Existent (Svayam bhu), which is unknowable and unfathomable." And their master, in his reply, laid down the principle of the One Uncreated God, the Giver of Light. "The Divine Self-Existent," he said, "indiscernible, making the elements and the rest discernible, appeared with creative force, dispelling the darkness.'
~The House of the Hidden Places, by W. Marsham Adams, [1895] page 83 and 84
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I understand what this paragraph is trying to explain, but I have questions. By "the One Uncreated God", does he mean, God was never created but always existed? How can a God be uncreated yet appear with creative force? Or perhaps they meant that God always existed, but one moment appeared (out of nowhere?) with a force meant for creation. By "Self-Existent" does he mean God once existed only to Himself?
If we are One, and God is One, then it follows by logic that we, too, are God. If God always existed but was indescernible, then is creation the act of making God discernible, thus making us and everything else discernible?
Who among you would like to comment on this paragraph, or to further explain this statement: "The Divine Self-Existent, indiscernible, making the elements and the rest discernible, appeared with creative force, dispelling the darkness."
What do you think?
22 comments:
It means God always existed. I love this poster
Kathy,
That is a nice poster.
Thanks for sharing.
To take this a bit further, and it has something to do with this blog post, if God created the heavens and the earth, and if God is the heavens and the earth, then in a sense, wouldn't that also mean that God created Himself/Herself/Itself? Maybe the physically inexistant version of God created their extant self. In other words, God manifested physically.
Since my mind can only think in spatial terms, I wonder what a non-physical God could be like. Not even a pinpoint. Not even a God molecule or God atom.
Just some thoughts and things I sometimes wonder about.
"Amid all the mysteries by which we are surrounded, nothing is more certain than that we are ever in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed."
-- Herbert Spender, writer and philosopher
Chris,
If you can provide me with the answer to that riddle, I'd have a head start on answering the other.
:)
Spender had a good point, there!
Tend to be able to interpret your quote but it did remind me of another. I think they're quite similar:
Praise be to God, the Eternal that perisheth not, the Everlasting that declineth not, the Self-Subsisting that altereth not. He it is Who is transcendent in His sovereignty, Who is manifest through His signs, and is hidden through His mysteries. He it is at Whose bidding the standard of the Most Exalted Word hath been lifted up in the world of creation, and the banner of "He doeth whatsoever He willeth" raised amidst all peoples. He it is Who hath revealed His Cause for the guidance of His creatures, and sent down His verses to demonstrate His Proof and His Testimony, and embellished the preface of the Book of Man with the ornament of utterance through His saying: "The God of Mercy hath taught the Qur'án, hath created man, and taught him articulate speech." No God is there but Him, the One, the Peerless, the Powerful, the Mighty, the Beneficent.
The light that is shed from the heaven of bounty, and the benediction that shineth from the dawning-place of the will of God, the Lord of the Kingdom of Names, rest upon Him Who is the Supreme Mediator, the Most Exalted Pen, Him Whom God hath made the Dawning-Place of His most excellent names and the Dayspring of His most exalted attributes. Through Him the light of unity hath shone forth above the horizon of the world, and the law of oneness hath been revealed amidst the nations, who, with radiant faces, have turned towards the Supreme Horizon, and acknowledged that which the Tongue of Utterance hath spoken in the kingdom of His knowledge: "Earth and heaven, glory and dominion, are God's, the Omnipotent, the Almighty, the Lord of grace abounding!"
(Baha'u'llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 1)
You ask such great questions Sophia, may I try?
Yes to the first question...to the second Creation for God meant seeing Himself thru others, others are 'creation' of that even for us, but for us to us it has to be qualified...to the third and fourth, yes and yes, and the 'force' is the will to see himself thru and in us.
Those answers also answer the questions in the next paragraph of you questionings. They explain those two questions.
"The Divine Self-Existent, indiscernible, making the elements and the rest discernible, appeared with creative force, dispelling the darkness." The Original Idea, formed its' details, those of itself, to see itself, as an entity whole and healthy, and in this, the Original Idea was known and experienced in full consciousness....this is well and done for God, for us at the moment, we are still in the middle of it, moving towards the union with that fullness of God, the fullness like He has, of knowing himself in us.
Just a try by me.
Then to your comment questions, I would say, you know when you have a thought, an idea of something that you might do, and it stays with you as just a thought, unformed and without details?....but then one day, you start to do it, and you do it until you fully understand all that it entailed, you give birth to it, you 'understand' it, it is then a 'physical' reality to you, not anymore ONLY AND ALONE, an idea....to have a 'son' means to have a form of yourself that gives you 'understanding' of yourself, such are we understandings of God, and God is the source of the thought that needed 'understandings' so that he might know himself....Son, understanding, and 'house' are states of detailed understandings of that which built them, this is always true in occult spiritual literature and religious jargon and doctrine and expositions.
Hmmmm,
I do not know how to think of it, and perhaps that is part of the intent.
It seems to point toward not thinking. It suggests that time(the concept) is not neccessary and that our whole paradigm about reason and cause and effect are completely uneccessary for God and perhaps for us too.
I did not exist five minutes ago. I only exist now.
Sometimes the concept of God can be seen as a metaphore for our selves.
I am reminded that God the concept is not the real thing. That thing can only be known directly. In a sense it is blasphemy to use the word. It feels a bit like putting a tremendously powerful, sensitive, and intelligent being into a little box and closing the lid. How offensive might that be to this very sensitive being?
Thanks for the post Sophia.
Well, I would guess that "the uncreated God" and the "Divine Self-Existent" are someone's attempt to translate into English some terms in Sanskrit. Indeed it's more than a guess because he puts the Sanskrit in brackets - svayam bhu. there is a tendency amongst us in the West to be awed by the creation myths of the Hindus and Chinese, as if somehow they had enormous wisdom that must not be questioned. Whereas we feel free to disbelieve the creation myth of the Jews as "not literal truth" and to be indulgent towards the DreamTime myths of the Australian Aborigines---to take a couple of examples.
I can't see that it matters much what the author was trying to say, because it's someone's view not worth anything more than someone else's view. And we all need a creation myth when we start to think about how we got here. The Big Bang of the scientists is just another myth. Each of the myths to survive has to satisfy its audience in some way but I don't think we'll find any literal truth in any of them.
We create God in our own image. We are the Godmaker. The Creator of the creator.
By letting go of God, we let go of the Creator.
Energy cannot be created of destroyed. First law of thermodynamics? Newton or Einstein?
of = or
Alex,
Thank you for posting the excerpt. Somthing I find curious is the title. What is the son of the wolf?
"...Who is manifest through His signs, and is hidden through His mysteries." There were times when I thought I noticed signs, but perhaps the greatest sign of all is the mystery. If everyone knew everything, it might all be taken for granted.
Jim,
Why of course! You may try anything you like!
Why did God want to see Himself/Herself/Itself?
Vincent,
You could be right, but I stress "could". I can see how easily a westerner could be fascinated by new ideas from the east. They are unusual and almost magical compared with the everyday-ness of Christianity. But I get new knowledge every day that I file away in my mental archives because they have no meaning for me. For one to accept ideas from the east, surely that idea has to resonate with someone, I mean, someone has to feel the truth within it before they claim it as their own. At least, that's how I feel.
If I was just looking for something new, I could choose my religion from any number of countries' philosophies or religions, not just the east.
Great question Sophia,
Humans are the capstone, the top of the chain of creation, for all things,for all kingdoms, mineral, vegetable, animal..the flower of us, is our power of understanding, our 'thought' ability, it should be opened/blossomed into the most perfect display of all creation, the rest of creation is the plant to which we are the flowering....
As such we are capable of total understanding of the whole, the seed, the plant, the flower itself (us), and all the mechanisms of all the inbetween...that is what there is to see and know by the creator of the whole...
so in this respect, what God wanted to see, why he wanted to see himself, is the same reason we each seek to understand life and love and all that is in it, we, he, wants to fully understand and thereby, fully appreciate and utilise and perfect all aspects of himself/ourself, all talents, all there is.
The negatives are unnecessary when the flower knows, in the meantime the negatives are part of the understanding understanding itself, we have to hurry that along so as to eliminate unnecessary negatives.
Just my opinion, but a studied one.
PS: this is why some say we are God, and v.v., because we as this flowering of the thought that is behind the universe and all in it, is for us to know and in that, we are it and it us, that is the conjunction of conjunctions.
Siegfried,
God cannot be created, can He?
If we create God, then it follows that we are the creator, thus we are God. It's like one big circle.
If something creates God, then there exists something that came before God, or, a Pre-God. Boggles my mind, the thought of it. Perhaps there are Supergods and Subgods, like in Grecian and Roman mythology.
This stuff's fun, isn't it? Isn't it amazing how one question only leads to more questions?
God = ?
We create God by believing. God is made up of beliefs.
Is there a God out there?
Let me see... God is probably everything our ideas about Him are not.
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